


Why Hari curses the Black Ancestral Home

by 1000percentDoneWithThisShist



Series: Harry's adventures through space and time [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bigotry & Prejudice, F/M, Female Harry Potter, Gen, Grey Harry Potter, Grey Magic Does Not Equal Grey Morals, Hari Potter Needs a Hug, Hari Potter Will Get a Hug, Harry is spelled as 'Hari', Male-Female Friendship, Multi, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Possessive Tom Riddle, Time Travel, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-02-22 16:03:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 33,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22718614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1000percentDoneWithThisShist/pseuds/1000percentDoneWithThisShist
Summary: For the record, Hari Potter would like to say that she doesn't go looking for trouble, trouble just finds her all on it's own.It was that damned pocket watch that Hari found in one of the drawers at the Black Ancestral Home. Picking it up was the last thing she remembered before her memory blacked out and she woke up dirty and bruised with the cloying taste of ash in her mouth. A newspaper (or what was left of it) held the date of May 27, 1942.I am so sorry, but I was recently hired at a new job that is slowly but surely sucking out my soul. I am taking a 1 year haitus on this fic because it's much harder to write a completely new fanfic (even if the concept is used), rather than, say, a rewriting of canon. I hope during this time to find my motivation again as well as the plot in a way that doesn't make it look rushed.
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore & Harry Potter, Charlus Potter & Harry Potter, Harry Potter & Black Family, Harry Potter & Original Character(s), Harry Potter & Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Harry Potter/Tom Riddle, Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort
Series: Harry's adventures through space and time [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1633762
Comments: 205
Kudos: 1285





	1. The Beginning of the End

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't beta read, so I apologize for any grammar mistakes.

For the record, Hari Potter would like to say that she doesn’t go looking for trouble, trouble just finds her all on its own.

Dumbledore had been kind enough to allow Hari to recuperate at her godfather’s old, ancestral house. Although, Hari had the sneaking suspicion that it was more due to the threats of violence that Sirius spewed, had he not allowed Hari to leave.

It didn’t matter how Hari got the permission to leave Hogwarts, she was grateful none the less. Hogwarts, for all of the fact that it would forever remain her first home, had become painfully stifling since she came back, half unconscious, and clinging to Cedric’s dead body. It was easy to see that the rest of the student body, with the few exceptions of her friends and several others, didn’t believe her claim that Voldemort was back.

Just three days ago, a group of sixth and seventh year Hufflepuffs gathered around her and tried to jump her, claiming that she should be in Azkaban for killing Cedric, instead of blaming it on a person who was already dead. Sirius had been furious when he heard about it, and it took the combined efforts of Hari and Remus to stop him from marching to Hogwarts and beating a bunch of children up. (Hari shuddered when Hermione inevitably found out. Hermione always had the terrifying tendency to casually set things or _people_ on fire if they annoyed her. But hurting Hari wouldn’t annoy her; it would _infuriate_ her.)

She took the whole day to explore after moving her things into the room where she was staying at, to the displeasure of a cranky, old house elf named Kreature. It was slightly disconcerting to find the family tree and realize that her grandmother was a Black, making Malfoy and his mother her cousins. That, and Bellatrix Lestrange. (The very thought made Hari send a quick apology to the thought of Neville for all of the horrible things the Lestranges did to his family.)

It was that damned pocket watch that Hari found in one of the drawers in her room that did this, she was sure of it. It was the last thing that she remembered picking up before her memory blacked out and she woke up dirty and bruised with the cloying taste of ash in her mouth. A newspaper (or what was left of it) held the date of May 27, 1942.

Panicking for a single, long moment, Hari groped around her skirt until she felt the familiar press of her wand.

Taking a moment to calm down, Hari stood on shaky knees and managed to wobble her way to an open street.

An officer patrolling the area noticed her almost immediately and rushed to her aide. Strong hands gripped her shoulders, steadying her. “Are you all right, miss? Where are your parents?”

An image of Sirius and Remus and Hermione and the Weasleys flashed through her mind, and Hari realized that she might never see them again. “They’re gone,” she choked out, tears blurring her vision, “Everyone…is gone.”

A handkerchief was pressed into her hand, and Hari gratefully used the cloth to wipe away her tears.

“Don’t cry, love. I’m sure your parents agree with me when I say that a pretty lass like you shouldn’t be so sad.”

Hari personally thought that it was a bit inconsiderate to bring up an orphan’s dead parents, especially if the death was supposed to be recent and the person was grieving, but appreciated the poor attempt to cheer her up, nonetheless.

“Are you…are you here to take me to an orphanage?”

The officer grimaced, “The War has left lots of children as orphans.” At her downed expression, he said, “Cheer up; a nice lass like you is sure to be adopted into a nice family.”

* * *

Wool’s Orphanage was an old, rundown building at the edge of town. Twin, rusty iron gates stood at the entrance, creaking and groaning loudly when they entered.

A part of Hari wondered if the matron purposefully left the gates in the condition they were in to warn for intruders.

The door to the entrance swung open, and a severe, stern looking woman came out to meet them. Her expression was set in a scowl, however her eyes softened marginally as she gazed at Hari’s dirty appearance.

“Thank you, kind officer, I will take it from here. Come, child.”

Obediently, Hari followed behind her, resisting the urge to fidget as over a dozen sets of eyes stared at her as she walked through the hallways.

Entering the matron’s personal study, Hari idly gazed at the handful of pictures that decorated the otherwise blank wall.

“My name is Agatha Cole. You will refer to me as ‘Mrs. Cole’ or ‘ma’am’, is that understood?”

Hari nodded, “Yes, ma’am.”

“Very good,” Mrs. Cole praised, and Hari felt herself flush in satisfaction. After all, her previous guardians were much more likely to spit insults at her than to praise her.

Mrs. Cole took out a blank piece of notebook paper and a pen. “I am going to ask you several questions,” she began to explain, sitting down with her pen in hand, “And I want you to answer them to the best of your ability. This will go on your record for anyone who is interested in adopting you.”

Hari nodded her head in deference, “Yes, ma’am.”

Mrs. Cole looked at her approvingly, “Families are going to like it if you are polite. First question, what is your full name?”

“Hari Jasmine Potter,” the green-eyed teen replied, “Hari is spelled as H-A-R-I.”

“Not short for ‘Harriet’ or any other combination of some sort?”

Hari nodded her head, “No, ma’am. Hari isn’t short for anything.”

“Very well then, Hari, your age and birthday.”

“My birthday is July 31st and I am fourteen years old.”

“Which school were you going to?”

Hari bit her lip, trying to figure out a background story for herself that could work both in the muggle world as well as the wizarding one. “I was homeschooled, ma’am,” she replied, an idea forming in her head, “My guardians wanted to keep me close to home with the war going on and the Depression.” Silently, she gave a mental ‘thank you’ to her muggle history class.

“‘Guardians’?” Mrs. Cole inquired.

Hari forced tears to well up at the corners of her eyes. It wasn’t hard at the thought of never being able to see her friends and family again. “My parents died when I was a baby, ma’am,” her voice warbled, emotion choking it, “My guardians took me in and raised me. They—they promised me that they’d never leave me!”

Almost instantaneously, thick arms wrapped around her shoulders and pulled her in a hug, and Hari almost felt bad for playing her feelings like she was. She needed some way to get to Hogwarts and ask Professor Dumbledore to help her get back to the time that she belonged in.

In the back of her mind, Hermione’s voice kept on telling her, ‘ _Nothing good ever happens to Wizards who meddle with time._ ’ She had to leave before she ended up changing the future irreparably.

Stiffening for a moment at the feel of a stranger giving her a hug, Hari forced herself to relax into it and hug the matron back. “Thank you, ma’am,” Hari whispered into her bosom, genuinely grateful.

Pulling away, Mrs. Cole cleared her throat, obviously not used to showing such displays of affection with others. “Are you okay to answer a few more questions?” she asked gruffly.

Hari nodded her assent, “Yes, ma’am.”

“This is the final question for your records: Are you allergic to anything?”

Hari shook her head, “Besides seasonal allergies, nothing ma’am.”

Placing the paper in some sort of folder before sliding it in a drawer and locking it, Mrs. Cole stood up and motioned for Hari to follow her, “I will give you the general tour and explain the rules of the orphanage and your role here. Ask questions at the end. If you have a question later that none of the others here can answer, you can ask me between eight in the morning and eight in the afternoon with the exception of Sundays in which we are all expected to go to mass.”

Hari quickly fell into step behind her, walking quickly to keep up. Curiously, she peered through the cracked windows into the other rooms as they passed by them.

“First rule is that we do not tolerate misbehavior of any sort. If I catch you _fighting_ or acting like some sort of _hooligan_ , I will give you the switch. I am a firm believer of the proverb, ‘ _Spare the rod, and spoil the child_ ’. I am fair, and I will listen to any problems that you have. But I refuse to allow any sort of nonsense in my orphanage.”

“Yes ma’am,” Hari was quick to acknowledge, “I completely understand.”

“No running in the halls, no screaming, no skipping on your chores. The only exceptions will be Easter, Christmas, and your birthday. No purposefully scaring the younger children. We have to ration our food, so I will punish you severely if I catch you stealing.”

They stopped at a door that seemed to lead into a bedroom.

Hari looked curiously at Mrs. Cole, who seemed to hesitate. “Is everything alright, ma’am?”

“I have to warn you about something, Hari,” Mrs. Cole spoke up suddenly, turning around so that she was facing the smaller girl. Her expression twisted uncomfortably, and Hari eyed the way she seemed to fumble with the hem of her worn dress.

Hari stood up straighter.

“We have another orphan about your age. His name is Tom Riddle.”

Hari froze, feeling as if a dementor had passed by, that icy terror freezing the blood in her veins. She pressed her lips together, not trusting her voice to remain neutral, should she respond.

“Right now, he’s away at some boarding school of his. I’m warning you now, because there is something…not quite right about that child. Strange things always happen around him, even if I can’t prove it—I know they did. He’s done some nasty things to the other orphans; so, if he ever gives you trouble, come tell me. He’s not supposed to be around the others, anyways; for their safety, that is.”

Hari was grateful for the warning, and the concern that the matron showed her, but she also couldn’t help but feel sad. It was obvious that Mrs. Cole was talking about his accidental magic, and the realization struck to her that this time period was much more condemning than the one she came from.

“He must feel lonely,” Hari sighed wistfully, not completely realizing that she had spoken out loud.

Mrs. Cole glanced at her, “You are far too kind for your own good.” She spoke the words as if they were a terrible thing.

Blushing a bright red at being caught saying such a thing, Hari mutely nodded her head.

“Because of his oddities, Tom has a private room. Unfortunately for you, you came in the middle of the war. We have an extreme shortage of beds and quite frankly, there isn’t any room in the girls’ rooms for you. You will stay here for a bit until we figure out where to put you.”

At Hari’s frightened expression, Mrs. Cole rushed to reassure, “You will have a place to sleep before Tom comes back, and don’t you worry, dear.”

After an awkward moment of silence, Mrs. Cole cleared her throat, “Take a shower and rest up. Tomorrow, I’ll partner you with Mary and she can show you the chores you will be expected to complete.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Hari spoke softly.

Mrs. Cole nodded once, before turning around and marching to where her attention was needed elsewhere.

Closing the bedroom door, Hari daintily sat down on the scratchy bed, and proceeded to have a panic attack for the following several minutes.

Tom Riddle, who was Lord Voldemort, was here. Baby Voldemort, who grew up to be a mass-murdering Dark Lord, who personally killed her parents, was going to eat the food she ate and sleep several doors down from her.

Her first thought was to kill him, screw the consequences. If she killed him now, before he had a chance to build his empire, she would save hundreds of lives. She could grow up with her parents and her godfather wouldn’t be a wanted criminal.

Almost immediately, she discarded the idea. As horrible as he might be, so far, Tom Riddle was innocent of all of those actions of his future self, and it left something bitter in Hari’s mouth at the idea of killing someone innocent (or, just killing anyone at all) for the idea of ‘the greater good’.

So instead, with Hermione’s warning about messing with time clear in her head, she decided to try and avoid Riddle as much as possible. From what she’s seen of him, he seemed very egotistical and didn’t bother wasting his time on things he didn’t see as interesting. For all he knew, she was just another dirty, muggle orphan. And Hari was counting on him not giving her the time of day.

* * *

Taking a quick shower to scrub herself down, Hari lamented her loss of Hogwarts, if only for its great water pressure.

Dressing in one of the orphanage’s uniforms, Hari stepped outside and was immediately accosted by half a dozen children or so, each one of them curious about the new person joining them.

Floundering for a moment, unsure of how to deal with them, she spoke up, “It’s nearly lunchtime, is it not? Can’t you wait to ask me your questions then?”

Some of them looked abashed. One child, however, seemed to have no shame.

“You’re really pretty!” Exclaimed a blonde girl with a dolly clutched in her hands; she couldn’t have been older than five.

Hari flushed, unused to the compliments, “Thank you. You’re really pretty, too.”

The blonde girl preened, and the boy next to her rolled his eyes.

Hari smiled awkwardly at the gaggle of children before her, “Hello, my name is Hari. I’m sorry, but who are you?”

An adorable boy with curly brown hair looked at her suspiciously, “Isn’t that a boy’s name? Is it a nickname for something?”

The blonde girl smacked him on his arm. “ _Jacob,_ ” she hissed, and Hari could tell that she would become a force to be reckoned with when she grew up, “ _You’re being rude!_ ”

Hari giggled, thankful for the tension in the room breaking, “It’s alright. ‘Hari’ isn’t a nickname. I guess it’s a boy’s name, but I like it. It’s nice to meet you, Jacob.”

Jacob flushed at the attention and averted his gaze, mumbling out, “Nice to meet you, too.”

The blonde girl smiled brightly at her, “Hello, Hari! My name is Anne!” Grabbing the boy who stood next to her, she pulled him closer, “This is my big brother, Keith! He’s seven years old and the smartest person in his class!”

Hari thought that it was adorable, how proud Anne seemed of her brother.

Jacob looked around, “Aren’t you supposed to be doing chores? Mrs. Cole will give you the switch if she finds out that you’re being lazy.”

Hari smirked wryly at him; it was obvious that she had a bit of a smartarse on her hands. “Mrs. Cole told me that I wouldn’t start chores until tomorrow because it’s my first day here, today.”

A chiming bell rang throughout the halls. Anne grabbed her hand before she could ask the others what the bell meant.

“Come on, Hari, it’s time for lunch!” the blonde crowed happily, dragging the teenager all the way to the mesh hall and into the line of orphans waiting for their food.

Hari eyed at least thirty different children, all different ages. There were a few of them who looked older than her, however it was obvious that she was one of the older kids who lived there.

A girl with pretty brown hair waved at her. Smiling at the girl, Hari waved back, nudging Anne as she did so. “Who’s she?” she wondered.

“That’s Amy. The boy sitting next to her is Dennis.” Anne lowered her voice, although it still couldn’t be considered as a whisper, “Rumor has it that Tom did something to them when they were all small children, and now they aren’t very social anymore. I’m surprised that Amy waved to you. Usually, she doesn’t pay attention to anyone.”

“Are you talking about the freak?” A voice called out from behind them, and Hari flinched at the familiar insult.

Turning around, she was met with a teen with sandy-blonde hair and dull, blue eyes. To her annoyance, he was at least half a head taller than her. He gave her a crooked smile, holding out his hand to shake. Hari did so hesitantly. “Hello,” he spoke, “My name is Billy.”

“Hari,” she replied, frowning at him, “Why’d you call him a freak?”

Billy rolled his eyes, and Hari wasn’t too sure if she liked him, Baby Voldemort or no Baby Voldemort.

“He always had creepy shit happening around him.” Billy ignored Anne’s reprimand for his language, keeping his eyes trained on Hari. “Like the time Amy found him hissing at snakes. When Amy confronted him, he set the snake on her.” At her horrified look, he was quick to reassure her, “It was just a garden snake. So the bite stung, but Amy didn’t have to go to the hospital or nothing.”

“How—how old…?”

“He was seven.”

Hari frowned, something insistent was nagging at her in the back of her mind. “Did you guys pick on him for being different?”

Billy scoffed, looking at her disbelievingly. “Trust me, sweetheart,” the endearment made her want to cringe in disgust, “Tom Riddle is a nasty piece of work. He was no victim.”

Hari leveled a glare at him; she was stubborn and she would embrace it. “I’m not saying that he was in the right, I’m asking if you left him alone in the first place. I’m sure he wouldn’t seem as creepy if you just ignored him and he didn’t feel as if he had to get back at you for calling him a freak. Words like those hurt. I know; I was called them by the people who raised me before my godfather took me in.”

Billy looked abashed, glaring mulishly at the floor but made no attempt at arguing with her.

By then, they had moved to the front of the line. Each orphan received a bowl of porridge and a chunk of bread at the side. Hari took her food with a grateful smile to the lady in charge (Martha, she soon learned). The rations were small, but it was still better than what she would have been fed at the Dursleys.

Anne, Keith, and Jacob sat with her. Several others joined, curious about the new person.

Soon, the two siblings were in a heated discussion on whether or not Hari was like a princess, much to the amusement of the others around the table. Hari was a flustered mess, trying to deny any sort of similarity with a fairytale princess.

“Hari is too a princess!” Anne exclaimed, “She’s the prettiest girl that I’ve ever seen, and she’s super nice!”

“But she’s an orphan,” Keith pointed out, and a part of Hari wanted to ask him why orphans couldn’t be princesses. It just seemed rather unfair.

“Snow White was an orphan,” Anne argued, “They even have dark hair and the same red lips.”

“Hari doesn’t have lips red as blood,” Jacob piped up.

“I hope not,” she commented dryly, “Or I should fear being turned into a vampire.”

Hari was happy that she seemed to get along with the people here, even if the children were outside her age group. She would miss them when she returned to her time period.

* * *

The weeks passed without much fanfare.

Hari quickly became a favorite of Mrs. Cole with how quickly and diligently she worked on her chores.

The babies, for some unknown reason, all seemed to calm around her, so she quickly became the one to go to if one of them was upset. She made acquaintances with Amy, Mary, and a few of the other girls. Anne still followed her around whenever she could, and usually dragged Keith and Jacob with her. Billy didn’t try to bother her again, but Hari could feel his stare whenever they were in the same room.

Mrs. Cole had yet to find another room for her to sleep in, but that didn’t bother Hari.

In fact, she had forgotten that her temporary room had belonged to Tom Riddle.

It was why she was so surprised when he came back.

She had been changing out of her dirty, gardening clothes and into her uniform when the handle on the door turned and Tom Riddle, in all of his egotistical glory barged in.

For a single, prolonged moment, they both stared at each other. Hari, with her arms covering his chest, a brilliant blush rising on her cheeks. Tom looked baffled, as if his brain couldn’t compute the fact that she had been changing in his room.

With rising indignation, Hari realized that Tom had been intently eyeing her: from her breasts, to her stomach to her thighs. He still had not said a word to her.

“GET OUT!” she screamed, throwing the nearest item she could reach (a pillow) at his head with deadly aim.


	2. The Calm and the Storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Parts of the chapter is in Tom's pov and is rather dark. This Fic is rated M for a reason, after all. Hari will eventually help him to fake being a well-rounded individual, but at the moment, he shows some unhealthy mentalities and violent thoughts.
> 
> This still isn't beta read, but I thought that I'd treat you with a second chapter for Valentines Day.

Tom Riddle had finished his fourth year at Hogwarts pleased with himself. It had taken four years, but he had finally managed to _convince_ his housemates to not underestimate him.

Oh, some of them still had reservations on the basis that he was a mudblood. But a well-aimed cruciatus had everyone falling in line, and the ones who hated him kept their mouths shut about it. 

Because Tom Riddle was no longer the first year who was the prime target for bullying. He might have been the top of his class, but it didn’t stop the sixth and seventh years locking him in closets and hexing his books. 

Dumbledore might have hated Slytherin, but he hated Tom even more. Any attack on Tom, no matter who the perpetrator was, had to have likely been the cause (no matter how indirectly) of something that he did. This meant that the attackers got off lightly each time they tried something with him. 

A shining example would have been the time in his second year that a third-year pureblood from Slytherin, Titus Nott, cast a tripping jinx on Tom as he was walking down a staircase. It was only due to Tom’s impressive control over his magic that he was able to hover over the air in order to stop himself from falling down the entire flight of stairs. Dumbledore, the utter bastard, let Nott off with a warning and two weeks' worth of detention for something that could have killed another student.

Slughorn was absolutely useless to go to, never wanting to upset the heirs to the wealthy and well-connected pureblood houses. He thought that he was trying his best, Tom was sure. He talked to them and he took off points here-and-there and he gave them detentions, but he didn’t do anything. He wanted Tom to simply roll over and _take the abuse_.

So, Tom took matters into his own hands. While others went outside to watch Quidditch games, Tom was inside the library, studying up hexes and jinxes that went beyond his year. The holidays were reserved for studies of the darker magics, when there weren’t as many nosy students milling about, ready to report him if he got caught (not that they would have had the chance, he would have made sure that they were silenced).

And all during that time, Tom played up his mask as perfect Tom Riddle. He was the poor, unfortunate orphan who worked twice as hard as everyone else, who got all Os for every class. He was kind and polite and helpful, if a bit distant with the rest of his peers. He was the teacher’s pet, the one who was the first to get a spell or a charm correct.

And now that he had hit puberty, many of the females thought of him as good-looking and became simpering idiots whenever he was in the vicinity.

And Tom hated them. Oh, they were better than the muggles because of their magic, but only just. They praised him in class for being so smart when the lessons being taught were _easy_ and so dreadfully dull. 

All the students and many of the teachers were mindless sheep, and so easily manipulated. They were so fucking _predictable_ that it sometimes pained Tom to have to converse with them for prolonged periods of time. They were simple-minded and arrogant and frightful bores and thought themselves better than Tom because they knew of the existence of magic longer than he. 

Well one day, the people like Titus Nott were going to meet a sticky end. And when that day came, Tom was going to drag their corpses out into the open to rot, laughing as he did so.

But even with the horrid masses that he had to deal with daily during school, Tom could easily admit it to himself that Hogwarts was his home. 

He would take prejudice simpletons any day over that wretched and diseased orphanage where every child was half-starved in the name of ‘preserving rations’ and the lingering, visceral fear of death from German bombings hung over the heads of every adult.

But every time he brought it up, Dumbledore would refuse him. Tom wanted to scream; the old coot wasn’t the one who could die any day over the course of summer vacation.  
Entering the orphanage, he sneered at Billy who had turned red and tried to bluster his way to Tom’s submission. But one small, innocuous smile from Tom left the stupid boy reeling in fear, stumbling back with a cry.

Mrs. Cole stepped out of her office and gazed sharply at Tom, although her eyes betrayed her in showing her fear. “Tom,” she spoke, and he wanted to mockingly commend her for not sounding scared. “You’re back.”

Tom smiled mirthlessly at her, “Yes, ma’am. School gets out every year at the same time.” ‘You blithering idiot’ went unsaid. “I’m very tired and I think that I’ll retire to my room now.”

Mrs. Cole’s eyes widened, looking frantic. “Wait--!” She tried to call out after him, but he simply ignored her. Any interaction with these muggles was more interaction than he wanted to deal with.

He paused when he saw his door closed, a light on inside. He wanted to snarl, who was stupid enough to be in his room? Michael? Dennis?

The door was locked, not that such a trivial thing could stop Tom.

He wanted to laugh. Whomever was about to be his next victim had locked themselves in his room, allowing him to block their only exit. Whatever, their fear should be able to take the edge off his irritation.

Because even if Hogwarts was his home, he could never show anyone his true self, not even his followers. No one would ever willingly follow him if they ever found out how truly sadistic he was. Sometimes he would lie in his bed and imagine the screams of his roommates. Of what Cecil Greengrass would sound like if Tom plucked out those pretty, blue eyes the next time the pureblood looked at him with poorly disguised disgust.

Casting a wandless Alohomora, Tom slammed open the door, trying to startle whoever was in the room.

He froze, nearly uncomprehending, at what he saw.

Oh, he wasn’t some stupid, teenaged boy who let his hormones take control of his thought processes. But staring at the strange girl in his bedroom, in only her panties, left him feeling unsettled. He wasn’t expecting it, and so he couldn’t prepare himself to react accordingly.

The mysterious girl was, objectively, extremely pretty. Tom could admit that much. She had a thick mane of dark locks, and the most exquisite green eyes that he had ever seen (they were the same shade as the killing curse). Her body was fit, with very little fat. Tom eyed the curious-looking scar on her forehead. She had several other, faded scars. They stretched over her smooth stomach and under the soft curve of her breasts.

Tom continued his search of her, still speechless, resting his gaze on the soft curves of her hips and thighs.

He was, by no means, asexual. He found several girls at his school pretty by the conventional standards. But their insipid personalities drove him off quicker than a dementor. It was his choice, prioritizing _important_ matters over his libido; he had no time for girls.

So, this was the first time that he saw one naked.

The moment between them broke, and the girl flushed red in outrage. She grabbed his pillow and threw it at him, smacking him in the face as he was still distracted.

“GET OUT!” she screamed.

Obediently, Tom left. 

* * *

About ten minutes had passed by, and the door had yet to open again. Tom knew that she had been fully dressed minutes ago; this was just because she was embarrassed.

Schooling his expression, lest he show her how annoyed he was, Tom gently knocked on the door. “May I please come in? I want to apologize to you.”

He didn’t, but if he did not smooth things over with her now, Mrs. Cole would make his summer miserable, should she find out.

Tom could always threaten the girl into not telling, but something told him that she would be harder to break than the others here. And even if he could easily imperio her wandlessly, he had to be careful to keep the Statute of Secrecy.

The door opened and the girl reluctantly allowed him in, glaring at him warily. Her eyes were sharp, and Tom had to swallow down the equally predatory grin he wanted to send her.

Sitting primly on his bed, she crossed her arms across her chest, “Don’t bother apologizing.”

Softening his eyes, he gave her an innocent expression, trying to look earnest. “What do you mean?” he wondered, “It was terrible of me to accidentally walk in on you changing, please let me properly apologize to you.”

The girl snorted, rolling her green eyes, “Doesn’t it hurt you to spout out such bullshit?”

Tom raised an eyebrow at her foul language. “What exactly are you implying?”

Her eyes narrowed at him, “I don’t want your apology because it’d be worthless. You couldn’t care less if I had been fully naked when you saw me. You might be a good actor, Tom Riddle, but the eyes are the windows to the soul. You were staring at me too intently to feel any sort of regret. If anything, you’re saying this to me because you don’t want me to tell Mrs. Cole you purposefully barged into my room while I was changing.”

She stared at him for a moment, before shaking her head, “You might not have known that I was changing, but I dare you to lie to me and tell me that you coming in was an accident. For as rundown as this orphanage is, the lock on your door was working perfectly well. You did something to open the door, I’m sure of it.”

Dropping his contrite expression, no longer needing it, he began to slowly stalk over to where she was sitting until he was towering over her. The girl didn’t flinch but tilted her chin to stare defiantly back (and something in Tom thrilled).

“Are you going to tell Mrs. Cole?” he asked mildly.

“No, you didn’t come into the room with the intention of peeking, even if that is what happened in the end.”

“I find myself at a loss. You probably know all about me from stories from the other orphans, yet I do not know your name.” Tom was indeed at a loss; this muggle girl was the most interesting thing he had experienced in months. In some ways, she was better than some of the wizards who hung on his every word.

“My name is Hari Potter.”

Tom perked up, “Potter?”

Hari eyed him suspiciously, “There are many Potters who live in Britain; it’s not exactly an extraordinary name.”

She gazed at the door in idle curiosity. “I’m surprised that Mrs. Cole has yet to check up on us to make sure that you haven’t used me as a virgin sacrifice for one of your satanic rituals.”

Despite himself, Tom felt his lips quirk up in genuine amusement, “She’s too busy dealing with the upset infants and toddlers to check up on you. Although, I suspect that she’ll come in soon.” He gazed at her, “What were you doing in my room in the first place?”

Hari shrugged in a decidedly unfeminine way, “When I came here, there wasn’t any room in the girl’s room’s and Mrs. Cole didn’t want to have me sleep with a bunch of boys, so she put me here as a temporary placement. Now that you’re here, I have no idea where I’m going to be placed next.”

Tom let out a slow smile, “Where, indeed.”

She gazed at him sharply, “What are you planning, Riddle?”

Letting his lips curl into an indolent smirk, he replied, “My, you’ve known me for less than half an hour and you already claim to know when I’m planning something.”

Hari glared at him, unimpressed. “You’ve already dropped the pretenses before, why start again now?”

She may have been a muggle, and thus, genetically inferior, but something in him called out to her. It was a shame that she wasn’t a witch; so far, she was the only person that Tom met with a personality that he could actually stand. She might have been weak, but she refused to act like prey, trying to stand toe-to-toe with him. In all honesty, it was sort of adorable, watching her futile efforts.

Tom Riddle had found a plaything to amuse himself with for over the summer, and he didn’t plan on letting her out of his sight until he found what it was that made her different.

“Hari,” called out Mrs. Cole’s voice from the entrance to his room.

Hari snapped her eyes up to meet the gaze of the Matron, smiling soothingly. “Hello, ma’am,” she called out respectfully, and Tom wondered if she was faking it or if she really was that polite to authority.

“I’m sorry that I haven’t checked in on you yet, Evelyn was being extremely fussy.” She eyed Tom with a mixture of suspicion and fear, and Tom sneered back. “If this boy is troubling you, tell me and I’ll fix it for you.”

“No, ma’am. I’m probably the one troubling him; being inside his room and all.”

“Mrs. Cole,” Tom spoke up, relishing in the surprised glance that Hari threw him, “I have a proposal.”

Agatha Cole glared at him hatefully. “I have no desire for your proposals,” she bit out.

Hari looked between the two of them warily, probably having never seen Mrs. Cole act like this before. A tiny part of Tom felt proud that he had the power to make the matron behave like this.

“I’ll just tell you my proposal, anyways,” Tom continued blithely, not paying any attention to how the woman before him puffed up in irritation, “Hari could simply sleep on the other bed in my room. Of course, each one of us will leave if the other is changing, so you don’t have to worry about modesty.”

By now, Hari was gaping at him, face flushed with a mixture of despair, fury, and embarrassment. Tom gave her a beatific smile in response.

Mrs. Cole looked to be nearly shocked beyond words. “What an outrageous suggestion!” she blustered, “Of course that’s not going to happen!”

Tom smiled at her sharply, ruthlessly, “And what else are you going to do? Are you going to make her sleep in a room with a dozen different boys after all? Or are you going to move another girl in with the boys so that Harry can sleep in the girls’ area. Perhaps you can use Anne; she’s young enough that none of the boys are going to try anything. I’m just sure how you are going to explain to her that she has to sleep in the boy’s area and can no longer let Mary sing her to sleep in order to ward off the bad dreams.”

The pallor of Mrs. Cole’s skin had turned white, but Tom continued to viciously tear her opinion apart, “Or are you going to send Anne here with me and hope for the best that nothing happens to her? Or any other girl, for that matter? After all, just because I was partial to allowing Hari to room with me doesn’t mean that the offer is extended to everyone else.”

She opened her mouth, before closing it again, words at a loss to her. Tom eyed her intently, daring her to refuse.

“That is absolutely—!” 

“I’ll do it.”

Both Tom and Mrs. Cole turned at the sound of Hari’s voice. She stared back at him, looking tired, but determined.

“What?” Mrs. Cole called out, voice wobbly.

“It’s not ideal, but it seems like the best solution. Everyone seems wary of Tom and it’d be unfair to force one of them to room with him so that I don’t have to.” She gave a reassuring smile to Mrs. Cole, “Don’t worry, ma’am, I’ll make sure to let you know whenever Riddle is causing me problems. Besides, he’s here for only the summer, and perhaps by the time he returns from school again, I’ll be adopted. I remember Mr. Williams said that he and his wife wanted to adopt me if he was able to find a job again.”

Tom narrowed his eyes; he would have to do something about the couple then, to ensure that they didn’t try to adopt Hari. He had just found her and like hell was he going to give her up to some pathetic no-name wanting to play house.

Mrs. Cole slumped, looking defeated, “Very well.”

After the dreadful woman left, Hari spun around to face him. “You are an arsehole, Tom Riddle,” she declared, and this time, her foul language did not come as much of a surprise. He had the feeling that she, for all of her delicate features, did not include a delicate mouth. “You were being unnecessarily cruel.”

Tom sneered at her, “That old bitch is just sour because the last three times she took me to the priest for an exorcism, none of them worked.”

The righteous anger on her face stuttered. “Exorcism?” she mumbled out.

Tom gave her an unpleasant smile in response.

* * *

  
Hari did not _flee_ from Tom Riddle. She made a _tactical retreat_.

It was just an hour in to the summer with the baby Dark Lord, and already her plans for staying invisible flew out the window.

In hindsight, she knew that it would never work. There was no way that she would stay quiet and passive the moment Riddle did something that she knew was wrong. She could never stand bullies, after all, and in this orphanage, Tom Riddle was one of the biggest ones of them all, using wandless magic to torment the others.

Then again, the others weren’t innocent angels either, yet there had to have been a better way with dealing with them. Because Tom Riddle didn’t just defend himself, he pushed until the roles were reversed and they were the ones who were hurting.

Sitting down on the grassy slope in the backyard, Hari curled into a ball: tucking her knees under her chin and hoping that the warmth from the sunlight would somehow help her to feel better. So far, it wasn’t working.

“What’s wrong?” 

She looked up to see Jacob standing before her, fidgeting nervously even as he gazed at her, concerned. Unbidden, a rush of affection swelled through her. Merlin, Hari loved the little bastard. She had been there for less than two months and she already viewed the kid as a little brother.

“Don’t worry,” she replied, ruffling his hair, “It’s nothing that you need to concern yourself with.”

Jacob nodded seriously, before sprinting back to the building.

Three minutes later, he brought several others with him. Anne ran up and tackled her in a hug, “DON’T BE SAD, HARI!”

At her bewildered glance, Jacob explained, “If it’s nothing that I need to concern myself with, then maybe it’s something that we all need to concern ourselves with.”

Has Hari ever mentioned that she loved them?

Amy gave her a side hug, while Mary ruffled her hair. 

“Okay,” Jacob stated, “Spill.”

Giving an exasperated sigh, already feeling tons better, Hari said, “I may or may not have to room with Riddle for the rest of the summer.”

“Wait, what?!” Amy shrieked, looking unnaturally pale.

“It’s fine, it’s just that our first meeting turned out to be rather embarrassing, and so I wasn’t pleased with spending the summer with him when all I want to do is avoid him and hope this day was nothing but a horrible nightmare.”

Anne bit her lip in worry. “But I heard that he’s a monster,” she spoke out softly.

Hari shook her head, “No, he isn’t. He’s horribly rude and unnecessarily mean, as well as rather controlling, but he isn’t a monster. I’ve met real life monsters before and they don’t act like him. He is human, just like you and me.”

Mary resolutely grabbed her hand. “Even if you, yourself cannot go to Mrs. Cole, should he ever do something to you, know that we have your backs.”

Hari gave her a hug of appreciation, nuzzling into her strawberry-blonde hair. “Thank you,” she murmured, “but I promise that I can take care of myself.”

She ignored the way that Riddle was staring holes into her back.

* * *

For the past several weeks, Riddle had been following her around. 

Oh, he never approached her when she was with the others (and Hari made sure that she was with the others all the time), but lingered around like some sort of bad omen. It was freaking out the others and starting to piss her off.

The final straw, however, had been the incident with Billy Stubbs.

Hari did not care for Billy Stubbs; he reminded her too much of her cousin, Dudley, for her to feel any affection for him. But he was rather harmless when he kept his mouth shut and so she tolerated him hanging around her, even if she did not go out of her way to include him.

She had been washing laundry with several others when he came up behind her and asked if he could play with her hair the way that she let Anne or Jacob play with it.

She was too busy with chores to bother with him and so she told him, “Pull on my hair and I’ll punch you.” She hadn’t even bothered to stop what she was doing to turn around and face him.

However, her words seemed to be all of the confirmation that Billy needed, because he began to gently play with her hair, fiddling with the ends of it.

They had stayed like that for several minutes: Hari diligently working on her chores while Billy played with her hair with a quiet sort of awe. Too bad that the universe and Riddle both conspired against her whenever they could.

One moment Billy was happily playing with her hair, and the next he was on the ground screaming and clutching at his ankle.

Hari instantly dropped what she was doing and cried out for help, leaning down to inspect the injury.

The ankle was swollen and a dark purple, near black. Hari hissed in sympathy, helping Billy to sit up and lean against the tub she was washing clothes in. He whimpered pitifully, moaning about how much it hurt.

Mrs. Cole ran out to them, looking frantic. “What happened?!” she demanded.

“Billy dislocated his ankle,” Hari replied, “I’m not sure how, though.” Oh, she knew how. The reason was staring at them through his window, looking pleased. 

“Mrs. Cole…” he whined.

“Ma’am, I really do believe that Billy needs to go to the hospital.”

Mrs. Cole nodded, sharing a shaky look with Billy, and Hari was certain that they knew it had been Tom Riddle, too. “I’ll take Billy to the hospital; you can be done with your chores today, you just went through a stressful experience. I’ll get Sally to do them for you, you just rest up.”

Hari nodded in gratitude, “Thank you, ma’am.”

Stalking inside, she headed straight for the room that she and Riddle shared.

To her annoyance, bloody bastard looked like he had been expecting her. “My, Hari, what a surprise,” he spoke dryly, “Is there a reason why you broke your two week streak of not speaking a word in my direction?”

Snarling, she poked him in the chest, “You bastard, you know exactly what you did! What the hell is wrong with you?! Billy wasn’t even bothering you!”

His mild expression dripped away and in its place was something cold and intimidating.

“What’s wrong with me?” he sneered towering over her (and Hari had to once more curse her short height), “What’s wrong with you? It’s bad enough that you let those snot-nosed brats hang on you all the time, but to go so far as to let _Billy Stubbs_ paw at you?! You do realize that he is barely smarter than a monkey, and trying anything with him could probably count as bestiality.”

Hari gaped at the response, “Are you—are you _jealous_?!”

Riddle smiled mockingly, “Jealousy implies that Billy Stubbs has something that I do not.”

“But you didn’t have to go so far! Now he has to go to the hospital!”

“Yes,” Riddle replied, sounding quite pleased with himself, “And not only will he be much more wary to approach you in the first place, but now he’s not even here. I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome.”

Hari glared at him furiously, shoving him away from her. “Why do you care about who I hang out with in the first place?!”

He gave her a hungry, unsettling smile in response. “Because you are the most interesting thing that this orphanage has seen since I was birthed on that very doorstep. I have claimed you as mine and I will make sure that you stay here with me until your novelty fades off and I am done with you.” 


	3. Hari Goes Job Hunting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Tom Riddle has some backwards opinions on people stuck in abusive relationships and I in no way agree with him.
> 
> I published this early to make up for the fact that it's going to be a while before I publish chapter four, with midterms just around the corner. 
> 
> Again, this is not beta read, because we die like men.

Hari just stared.

It was obvious that Riddle was jealous, no matter how much he didn’t have the right to be.

And Hari had firsthand experience with how ugly people could get when they were jealous. Ron was a shining example; trying his damn best to completely shut her out during their fourth year.

But this was beyond that. This wasn’t isolation based off petty emotions. Riddle was staring at her with a mixture of anger and a dark type of possessiveness.

Hearing his words made her feel simultaneously hot and cold. The venomous words he spat at her made her bristle; what right did that self-serving git have to tell her who she should or shouldn’t hang out with?! He didn’t know her. After their initial meeting, Hari made sure not to speak more than two sentences with him at a time.

But while his words made her bristle, it was the way that he talked about her as if she was an object in his possession that made her finally snap.

Standing up straighter, Hari did something that she had never dared to do. Using all her strength, she slapped him across the face. Hard. The sound echoed loudly throughout the room. Riddle’s head snapped to the side from the force, both stunned silent at Hari’s response.

For a moment, Hari looked at her hand as if it were the first time that she noticed it was there. Never in her life, no matter who it was, had she physically raised her hand at them.

With the Dursleys, despite the occasional accidental magic that happened when she was too emotional, she was too scared of Uncle Vernon to ever try to physically fight back (especially before she learned that she was a witch). And while she had gotten into a few fights at Hogwarts, it was always with jinxes and hexes. Never with punches and kicks.

But if anyone deserved to be bitch slapped, Hari decided, then there was no one more deserving then Tom bloody Riddle. The thought, however, did not stop her heart from racing at the idea of further angering the person who had probably already started throwing around the cruciatus curse like he was handing out party favors.

Taking in a shaky breath, Hari stared down Tom Riddle, her eyes like steel. “Let me make one thing clear, Riddle,” she spoke coldly, doing her best to imitate the Slytherin purebloods from her time, “I am not an object. I am not _yours_. You don’t know a single thing about my life before I came to the orphanage and I doubt you ever will.”

She stormed past him (shoving him out of her way as she did so) before he had the chance to say something, slamming the door shut on her way out.

Heading outside, she eyed an unused basin, still filled with water from when they were doing laundry. Without any fanfare, she kicked the basin over with a shriek of rage, watching as all the water and soap spilled out onto the grass.

Several nearby orphans looked at her, startled, but none were brave enough to ask her what was wrong.

That was just fine with her, she thought viciously as the branches of the large oak tree in front of Wool’s Orphanage began rattling because of a burst of magic, she was too pissed off to speak, anyways.

* * *

Tom stared at the door long after she had left, frozen to the spot he had been standing on.

That…hadn’t gone as expected. At all.

He could admit it to himself that it was rather idiotic to allow his mask to slip that much around Hari Potter. She was already somewhat wary of him, and their disastrous first meeting hadn’t helped her image of him, but until now, there hadn’t been any concrete evidence pointing to his “demonic tendencies” as Mrs. Cole liked to call it.

He hadn’t planned on letting his mask truly start to slip until he had found just what it was that made her **special**. Once he satisfied his curiosity, she was bound to look _dull_ and _boring_ like everything else in the muggle world.

A memory resurfaced, of their first official conversation. Within several sentences, Hari had effectively stripped him of his mask as a caring and sympathetic person, eyes as green as the killing curse staring at him as if she could see into his soul.

No one else was able to do that to Tom Riddle, not even Dumbledore (although Tom wouldn’t be surprised if the bigot thought so. But there is a difference between what Hari did and listening to rumors and holding preconceived notions about the Slytherin house.)

His cheek was still throbbing from where she had slapped him, surprising him with her strength. Without a doubt, she left behind a bright red mark. It would be almost comical, if the thought of something so ridiculous happening to him didn’t cause a vase in his bedroom to shatter as a result of his magic lashing out.

But even after showing her more of his _true colors_ , Tom Riddle hadn’t expected her to react as she did.

Tom wasn’t chauvinistic enough to believe that all girls were delicate, little flowers who only dreamed of marrying someone powerful and becoming the perfect housewife; but experiences showed that they generally _were_ more fragile than the men. In many cases, it was due to society limiting their freedom, but the fact remained that they rarely fought back in such an open way.

But instead of crying and vowing to get back at him while he was sleeping (although Tom would still be wary about going to bed with her in the room just in case), Hari squared her shoulders and met him head on. It was like she embodied true, Gryffindor bravery, eyes burning like fire.

How could she look at him without fear while the proud, Slytherin purebloods couldn’t even look him in the eyes? It was ludicrous.

A part of him wanted to know how much of him could she truly handle until she feared him just like all the others here at this thrice damned orphanage. It was always a guilty pleasure of his, pushing the limits of others until they broke. It made him feel powerful, especially since it gave him the pleasure of being able to decide whether he wanted to fix them, allowing him to mold his pet project into whatever he wanted.

But another part of him knew that if he kept on openly pushing her too far, she would metaphorically pack up and leave. He had a feeling that she would be hard pressed to ever become one of those pathetic women who tied themselves to an abusive partner, something that Tom knew he was acting like. She had enough self-respect to leave the situation if it got too much for her to handle.

It would be annoying, hiding parts of his true nature now that he knew that she wouldn’t cower in the face of it. It a bit _relieving_ to have someone he didn’t have to act around, muggle or not. To potentially have someone who accepted him for who he really was, and not a simple mask that he used.

No, Hari Potter, whoever she was, held too much importance for Tom to callously drive her away. So far this summer, she was the only thing keeping him from insanity at that _stupid_ orphanage. It would be wonderful if he could look for a summer job, but Malfoy told him that Borgin and Burkes did not hire any students younger than sixteen, meaning that he would have to wait until next summer.

That meant that he would have to play nicer if he wanted to use Hari as a distraction. She obviously valued her freedom above all else and trying to stifle her was counterproductive to his overall goals.

Tom still refused to apologize to her.

* * *

Taking a good hour to cool her head, Hari made up her mind.

Obviously, she had to continue rooming with Riddle. She wasn’t about to let anyone else suffer his ire because he decided to throw a hissy fit. But besides that, she could avoid future arguments if she avoided him altogether. Her motto was: if it’s not there in front of her, then it doesn’t exist.

Of course, Hermione would be the first one to tell her that avoiding her problems wasn’t healthy, but it worked so far so Hari was going to continue doing so. Besides, Hari knew better than anyone about her temper—it was best to avoid Riddle and all the stress he brought into her life altogether if she didn’t want to blow up in some spectacular way.

So, Hari decided that she wanted to look for a job.

Preferably, in Diagon Alley so that she could find some way of contacting Dumbledore and Armando Dippet, who was supposed to be the headmaster at Hogwarts during this time.

Besides that, other than vague dates and facts she read from _Hogwarts: A History_ (Hermione was relentless until she agreed to give the book a try), Hari had no idea how far Grindelwald’s influence has spread across the nation. It would be very suspicious claiming that her guardians died in an attack if she had no idea what the current political landscape looked like. She needed information so she wouldn’t be caught unaware.

Luckily enough for her, Mrs. Cole was very supportive of her idea of finding a job.

_“Hari!” Mrs. Cole exclaimed in surprise. As lovely an addition that Hari was to the orphanage, the girl rarely relied on others, choosing to be as self-sufficient as possible. To see her now, in her office, was somewhat strange._

_Mrs. Cole could admit to being more partial to certain children. The younger ones, and the girls were her favorites. They didn’t get into as much trouble and were more willing to help with the chores._

_Agatha Cole liked Hari, strange as she was. It wasn’t just the fact that Hari seemed to embody the idea of being a “tomboy”, climbing up trees and dirtying her dresses in the mud. There was a certain air about her that Agatha couldn’t put her finger on. Something untouchable. Something that made the girl different._

_She could see that for as polite and considerate as Hari was towards others, and as much as Hari seemed to genuinely enjoy the company of the other orphans, the lass seemed to hold others at arm’s length. Sometimes, when Agatha was looking at the girl, she noticed that her eyes seemed distant and sad, and she couldn’t help but wonder what type of horrors someone so young could have experienced._

_“Is there anything you need, dear?”_

_Hari resolutely nodded her head, hands clasped behind her back in nervousness. “I would like to try and find a job, ma’am.”_

_“A job? Don’t you think that you’re a bit young for that, why not enjoy your childhood while it lasts?”_

_“Please, ma’am. I want to receive a higher education once I am old enough, but I can’t do that without money. And even if I am adopted into a family, there’s no guarantee that they’ll have enough money to send me to school. And if I’m not adopted, then I will have enough saved up, so I won’t end up on the streets like I sometimes see other girls just a few years older than me.”_

_Secretly, Agatha was glad. She had been the matron of Wool’s Orphanage for many years and had seen a number of young girls who weren’t adopted end up on the streets doing only God knows what. She didn’t want that fate to happen to any of the children under her care, even Tom, as horrible of a child as he was, and especially didn’t want it for someone as charming as Hari._

_She agreed almost immediately._

_“I have some ground rules for you: No working on Sundays, you are still expected to attend mass. Your chores will be slightly lessened, although you will still be expected to do your part around here. I don’t want you coming and going at odd hours of the night, so you can start work no earlier than eight a.m. and need to be home by eight p.m. in order to make curfew.”_

_Hari, the sweet child, nodded along eagerly, writing down her rules on a scratch piece of paper._

_Giving a minute smile, Agatha dug around in her purse and gave Hari several pence. “I will pay for bus fare until you get paid. After that, the cost of transportation to your job is your responsibility.”_

_The beaming smile that Hari gave her made up for her loss of the daily paper for the next week or so._

Finding the entrance to Diagon Alley was more difficult than Hari remembered, and she cursed the difference in streets between 1942 and 1995. Then she cursed her lack of a galleons, rendering her unable to take the knight bus.

Fortunately, the barkeeper (Tom’s father, Hari guessed the business was family-owned) was happy to help her to Diagon Alley when she realized that she had forgotten the combination.

Diagon Alley, much to her relief, was almost exactly the same to how it was in her time. The only difference was that many of the stores she remembered visiting before were either new, or they hadn’t quite existed yet and another store substituted in their places.

It was almost like being home again. Except—

“I say it’s ridiculous, the way they let mudbloods roam around like they bloody own the place.”

Hari knew, distantly, that people had a much more prejudice mindset in the forties but knowing about it and experiencing it firsthand were two completely different things. It made her wonder about Tom Riddle’s experience in Hogwarts, with his surname so obviously muggle.

There was a woman who looked similar to Sirius talking to a man who had to have been a Malfoy, if the platinum blonde hair was any indicative. Both were obviously pureblood, and both were people that Hari was now trying to actively avoid. No sense in bringing attention to yourself if you could help it.

They had just exited Madame Maltik’s, meaning that Hari would look for a job in the opposite direction.

To her absolute delight, Flourish & Blots was just ahead of her. Perhaps if she worked there and somehow found a way to transfer to Hogwarts to continue her education until she found a way back home, they would give her some sort of discount on books.

(Because even if she was technically a Potter, she has no claim to their money and is, for all intents and purposes, flat-out broke.)

Entering the store, she glanced around in mild curiosity at the other customers milling about, trying to see if she could match faces with the purebloods and halfbloods she went to school with. (She stopped, however, when a student a few years older than her caught her staring.)

Walking up to the counter, she spoke to the person in charge. “Excuse me,” she spoke up politely, “I don’t suppose that this bookshop is looking to hire any students for a summer job, is it?”

The man stared down at her impassively. Hari fought to keep her face blank.

Slowly, he turned towards the staff room and gestured her inside.

Hari gave a thank you and stepped inside. The staff room, itself, was rather cozy. The walls were a warm yellow and several portraits hung on the wall, all of them of young men and women, no older than thirty-five, with kind smiles on their faces.

Unsure of what else to do, Hari sat in an unoccupied chair, using a considerable amount of willpower to not chew on her fingernails like she wanted to.

After several minutes of absolute silence, Hari turned, somewhat shyly, towards the various portraits that decorated the room.

“Hello,” she spoke up, smiling awkwardly at the other faces, “My name is Hari.”

“Oh, she is absolutely adorable!” exclaimed a woman with hair as red as an apple. Merry, brown eyes stared into her own, and Hari felt her smile turn a bit more genuine.

A man with brown hair swept into a low ponytail gave a small scoff. “You say that about every person who walks through those doors, looking for a job.”

The woman pouted. “True, but when was the last time that someone was polite enough to start a conversation with us? And look at how pretty she is…customers are bound to come back if they see a face like hers.”

Hari felt her face flush in embarrassment, unused to the blatant compliments towards her looks. She was rather average-looking, if you asked her. There really wasn’t anything special about her (except for her scar and her title as The-Girl-Who-Lived, but nobody knew about either of those things).

Fidgeting in her seat a bit, she wondered if she would get in trouble for talking to the portraits.

Another woman with short, cropped hair smiled kindly at her. “Well then, Hari, what is it that you hope to gain here?”

Hari stared at her, dumbly. Was this an interview? Was she supposed to give some sort of profound answer?

“A job,” she replied, like some sort of idiot.

The woman with red hair burst out laughing, and Hari, embarrassed, hid her face under her mop of hair, wishing more than anything for the ground to swallow her up whole.

“Oh, dear,” the redhead spoke up after she had stopped laughing, “I didn’t mean to make you feel embarrassed. It’s just been a while since we’ve seen someone refreshing.”

“It’s fine,” Hari mumbled out, still halfway hiding her face, “how exactly am I supposed to apply for this job? No one has yet to explain anything to me. Is the owner going to give me an interview?”

“You’ll see,” was all she was answered with, much to her irritation.

She was just about to stand up and look for a job elsewhere, when tremors began to shake the room, the sound of explosions just outside the door.

In an instant she was standing, wand out. “What was that?” she demanded.

The portraits looked almost afraid, “Someone’s attacking the store.”

Hari cursed herself for tempting fate. She just _wanted_ to know how far Grindelwald had gone, so now the store she was in was being attacked.

Merlin, even when there wasn’t a Dark Lord actively trying to kill her, she still had to fight for her life.

Stepping back into the main part of the store was like entering the twilight zone. The windows had shattered and there were large chunks of the wall smashed to bits. There were bookshelves on fire and the smoke made Hari’s eyes water. People were running around in unorganized chaos, screaming in fright. The Aurors were nowhere in sight and as they were, these people were acting like sitting ducks.

Crawling on her hands and knees like the firemen taught her muggle class, Hari made her way to the main group of people, casting a _sonorus_ to get their attention.

“You’re going to harm yourselves and others if you keep acting like this!” she shouted, surprising most of them to silence. “Right now, our top priorities are getting people to safety, children first, and holding off the attackers until the Aurors get here!”

“And I suppose you are going to be one of the children who will get to safety?” a nasally voice spoke out, unimpressed.

The person next to them slapped their arm for the comment, “Of course she is! She is but a child, herself.”

“No, I will stay and make sure that the others get out safely.” That shocked the others, rendering the duo speechless.

Another man from the back made his way forward, “And what is it that you suggest we do?”

Hari straightened up under his gaze. “First thing we need to do is to put out the fires to make the paths to escape safer. Safety is top priority. Young or old, the people who are good at the shield charms and at defense needs to stay back to make sure that the others escaping aren’t interceded. They will be the ones to leave last. Has someone alerted the Aurors?”

Several heads nodded, and Hari felt relieved.

“Who here is good at water charms?”

Several people raised their hands.

“Alright, then, your job is to put out the fires and to help guide the others to safety. This way, if there is more fire blocking an exit, you lot will be able to douse them. Look around the shop for others, whether they are trapped, or scared children who decided to hide themselves. Next, I want two or three others who have some skill in healing to go with them and render first aid however they can to the injured.”

Hari watched as people shuffled out to do their assigned jobs. Turning to the rest, she said, “We are the defense. Our job is to shield the others and ourselves until everyone gets to safety. Unless it’s life or death, or you are certain that you can defeat your opponent, do not engage in fighting them. Just keep your shield charms up. Does everyone understand their jobs?”

Throughout the group, numerous voices called out their confirmation, the morale high. Everyone had a determined glint in their eyes. Hari let herself smile.

“ _EXPECTO PATRONUM!”_

Various shouts were heard across the room as a magnificent, white stag pranced around the room. Several others were looking at her in what looked like awe.

“This is Prongs,” Hari explained, “He will help others find safety.”

The next round of attacks came, but this time, they were ready.

“Brace yourselves!” she shouted to the others with her, turning around to see if anyone else was injured. “Cast your shields now!”

As one, the group cast the strongest shield charm they knew, blue shimmering around the entire front of the store.

Hari watched as multiple spells hit the shield, none of them getting through. “Keep it up,” she encouraged, “The Aurors should be here in a few minutes.”

Turning around, she began to help the others search for survivors under the rubble. Out of the corner of her eyes, she watched as Prongs began to chase several attackers who’d tried to sneak up through the back entrance away.

A fearful cry turned her attention to a younger boy. He was crying and though he had his wand out at his attacker, his hands were shaking too much to properly aim at the man in front of him.

The man grinned a terrible grin. “ _Avada—”_

“ _BOMBARDA!”_ Hari screamed, blasting the man into the wall behind him.

Helping the boy to his feet, she began to check him over for any major injuries, hissing in sympathy at the many cuts and scratches that had to have stung like a bitch. Wiping away the tears from startling, grey eyes, she asked, “Are you ok? Can you walk?”

The boy nodded, offering her a shy smile. “Thank you. My name is Orion Black and I am in your debt.”

Hari startled. This was Sirius’ father. She wondered who would have saved him the first time around. Or maybe, and she felt extremely guilty when she thought of this, it was her interference that put him in harm’s way in the first place.

“Then to fulfill the debt, I want you to help anyone else that might need help escaping. That, and to make sure that you stay safe.”

The boy looked put out, “That’s not how the debt works. It has to be something that you want.”

Hari raised an eyebrow at the boy, “Why would I save you if I didn’t want you to live?” When he didn’t answer, she gave him a small shove and sent him on his way.

“EVERYONE!” a voice shouted in maniacal glee, voice choked up with emotion, “THE AURORS ARE HERE!”

Hari felt her knees buckle in relief, tears stinging at the corners of her eyes. Absentmindedly, she got rid of her patronus, forever thankful for Prongs. Several feet away, a group of friends began bawling, their face a mess of snot and tears.

The Head Auror (who Hari later found out was named Mateo Lovegood, a distant uncle of Luna Lovegood) led the charge as the aurors rounded up the rest of the stragglers.

“Alright,” he spoke up, “I want key witnesses to come to the front for questioning.”

Hari made her way to Auror Lovegood, surprised at how much respect she was receiving from the others in the store who parted to let her through.

Auror Lovegood looked at her in mild disinterest, “And how do you fit into all of this?”

“She saved my life,” a voice spoke up from the back. Orion Black stood beside his older sister, Lucretia, face set in pure, stubborn determination. “A man was about to cast the killing curse at me and she blasted him away.”

Lucretia spoke up, “I was with my brother when the initial attack came, losing him in the panic and chaos. That little girl there,” and Hari felt annoyed, because Lucretia Black couldn’t have been more than a year or two older than her, “managed to calm everyone down and to give instructions on how to safely evacuate the store, choosing to stay behind to make sure that the others got out safely. She single-handedly cast a corporeal patronus, something even grown aurors have struggles with, and had the patronus lead others to safety. She is the sole reason why you lot didn’t arrive to find dead bodies littering the floor.” Her last words were scathing and Hari winced, even though they weren’t directed at her.

Auror Lovegood flushed red in anger at the dig, turning towards Hari in disbelief, “There is no way that a young girl like you can cast a corporeal patronus.”

Hari sighed, realizing that he wasn’t going to let it go. “ _Expecto Patronum.”_ Instantly, Prongs was there, happily prancing around her and blowing what looked like to be raspberries at the aurors staring at her in awe.

“It wasn’t just me,” Hari spoke up, “None of this would have happened if the brave men and women and even children here did not help me. I just so happened to be the one to calm them down, anyone else would have done the same thing. Honestly, it was nothing special. Besides, I’ve been able to cast a corporeal patronus since I was thirteen.”

Lucretia Black shook her head, “No, that’s not something that anyone would have done, or else they wouldn’t have left it for you to do so. What you did was brave.” Her expression turned more curious, “Though I don’t recall seeing you at Hogwarts.”

Heartbeat stuttering for a moment, Hari hoped her voice didn’t betray how nervous she felt with this line of questioning. “I was homeschooled.”

Neither of them pointed out her use of the past tense.

* * *

In the end, the owner of the shop practically shoved the job onto her, telling her that he expected her to start work tomorrow to help clean up the shop. It took a good several hours for the aurors to get statements from everyone, and another hour or so for Hari to fill out the correct paperwork.

She was glad that she had yet to take her OWLs, because it would have been weird if she were several years older and was unable to produce a copy of her OWLs or NEWTS.

By the time she came back to the orphanage, it was well after dark. Mrs. Cole went on an entire tirade berating her for her senseless lack of time management, only mildly mollified at the fact that Hari managed to find a job.

Miles away, a man by the name of Gellert Grindelwald heard about the attack in his name, and wondered who was powerful enough to stop it. Besides him, the elder wand thrummed with a curious air of satisfaction.


	4. flower crowns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaagh! I am sorry for updating so late, but for like an entire week, I had writers block, and then I had issues with the my laptop. And with everything going on, the libraries near my house are no longer allowing people to use their computers.
> 
> Anyways, with the world the way it was, I decided to add in a ton of floof and Tom Riddle being a total drama queen for your viewing pleasure.

Hari decided that she both loved and hated her job.

Now that the man (whose name was Cyrus) was no longer the only worker at the store, he scheduled her work so that he had the time off, leaving her to fend for herself with a minimal explanation on how to do her job.

Three days after the attack on Diagon Alley, Flourish n’ Blots were ready to reopen for business.

The moment they reopened, everyone and their mothers came to check out books and to make sure what they were looking for hadn’t been damaged. Everyone was concerned that the books they had owl-ordered were damaged and demanded that Hari go and check on it. And then they demanded that they spoke with the owner when Hari told them it was against store policy for her to do so.

By the time that lunch came around and the majority of the patrons had left, Hari slumped in her seat, exhausted with the effort it took to restrain her temper and remain polite. By now, there were only a handful of people left in the store. Each one was either searching for a book or reading quietly, leaving Hari to figure out how to use the store’s cash register in peace.

At least she was getting paid at the end of the week.

The next day was much easier in certain aspects (she now knew how to use the cash register like a champ), but another problem soon arose. One that tested her patience much more than frantic customers.

The rumor came around and outed her as the person who helped keep people safe during the attack. People were now stopping by to get a peek at her, curious about her sudden appearance in the British Magical Community. And while some people were nice, others found her ‘disappointing’.

“When I heard the supposed hero from last week’s attacks worked here, I’ll admit that I was curious,” a man who introduced himself  _ as the current Lord of the House of Nott _ spoke up. He eyed her coolly, lips pulled back in a sneer. “Imagine my disappointment when I enter this store only to find a little girl wearing clothes that could only belong to some piss-poor mudblood.”

Hari glared at the man, green eyes practically glowing in the afternoon light. Taking a deep breath, she willed her heart to calm down. She was getting paid to smile at the customers, no matter how much she might want to kick them in the crotch. That, and she needed the money and couldn’t afford to lose her job because she picked a fight with a bigot. “Will that be all, sir?”

Lord Nott gave her a thin smile, “Indeed. I have a prior engagement that I have to attend. Good day.”

Hari growled wordlessly as she watched him exit the store, hands clenched into fists at her sides. She could feel the curious and concerned gazed from the others in the store, causing her skin to prickle uncomfortably.

“Are you alright?” a voice spoke up.

Hari turned to see who was talking to her and felt her breath catch in her throat. She only had the one picture of her parents (back at home on the dresser that Sirius gave her), but the teen in front of her looked almost exactly like her father.

He gave her a lopsided grin, and Hari began to miss Sirius more terribly than she ever had since this whole fiasco started.

“Hello,” he introduced himself, taking her hand and placing a kiss on the back of it, “My name is Charlus Potter. I apologize on behalf of all purebloods, miss, Lord Nott should never have said such things to you. It’s been a pleasure meeting you.” Oh, good lord, this was her grandfather.

Hari smiled awkwardly and pulled her hand away, unused to being introduced to someone else in such a manner. “It’s been a pleasure meeting you, too. My name is Hari.”

Charlus Potter blinked in surprise, before letting out a small laugh, “Alright, I’ll admit to never meeting a girl named Hari before. Somehow, it suits you.” He frowned when he noticed the crescent-shaped marks littering along her palm from where her nails had dug into flesh. “Though I am serious: are you alright?”

Hari gave him an exhausted smile, “I have a bad temper when someone manages to anger me. I had to constantly remind myself that I was being paid to not get into a fistfight with a bigot.”

“Ooh, and she’s violent, too.”

Hari let out a laugh, some of her anger from before dissipating. “He point-blank called me a ‘piss-poor mudblood’ and implicitly told me that I couldn’t have been that great or powerful because I was a female. You better believe that I would have happily knocked him on his arse if I could without fear of consequences.”

Charlus Potter let out a hearty laugh, ruffling her hair (much to her indignation). “My fiancé would love you; she is a Slytherin through-and-through and always tried to instill the importance of picking your fights while refusing to be a doormat. Remember that you deserve to be here just as much as the rest of us, and don’t let anyone else try to convince you otherwise.”

Hari’s heart swelled in familial affection for the relative that she never met. Although…

“Fiancé? Forgive my rudeness, but you can’t be even a full year out of Hogwarts. That seems like a young age to be truly engaged.”

He gave her a wry smile. “I’m actually going to be a seventh year once Hogwarts starts again. We technically aren’t fiancés yet, but we’ve decided to commit to each other, and have recently managed to have both of our families acknowledge our commitment. Our wedding is going to be about a month after Dorea’s twenty-third birthday, so we still have a way to go.”

Hari gave him a bright smile, genuinely happy for her future grandparents, “Congratulations to you two; I bet your wedding will be beautiful. Are there any books that you would like to buy? Or are you continuing to look around?”

Charlus Potter let out an amused hum, eyes shining in amusement. “Quite the little saleswoman, aren’t you?”

Hari gave him an unrepentant smile. “My paycheck depends on how many books I can sell in a week.”

Chortling, Charlus randomly grabbed a book from a nearby pile and placed it on the counter. “I would like to purchase the…” He paused, glancing over at the title, “The  _ Stages of Life of the Devil Snare _ .”

“Interested in Herbology, are you?”

Charlus smirked at her, “I’m buttering you up so you accept my wedding invitation when we finally get around to handing them out.”

Hari startled. “What do you mean, ‘wedding invitation’?” she demanded, “You can’t just invite random strangers to your wedding.”

“I just did! Besides, there’s going to be many stuffy purebloods that are going to try to turn our special day into a political movement. Having your bright smile would make the ceremony much more bearable. Good day!”

Hari watched him leave, a bit dazed, unsure what just happened.

“See you next time, Hari! I’ll bring Dorea with me the next time I come here!”

She felt inexplicably happy after talking to him, despite his rather eccentric personality (but then again, he was engaged to Dorea Black, and only someone crazy would willingly tie themselves to  _ that  _ family out of love). Honestly, she wasn’t sure if she even felt so lighthearted, and appreciated Charlus Potter for being able to help her find humor in her situation.

It helped her get through the rest of the day, even as some of the older women shot her dirty looks, probably assuming that she was trying to flirt with the Potter Heir.

(She would never, that would be gross and disturbingly incestuous. Besides, she and Ron were the perfect example of how males and females could have a close friendship without turning it into something more. He was her best friend, after all.)

A distant voice that sounded a lot like Hermione scolded her for getting so involved in the timeline. Hari’s denial retorted that she worked part-time at a bookstore; there wasn’t a lot that she could do that would drastically change the flow of time, or whatever.

* * *

Tom Riddle was in a foul mood.

For the past several weeks, Hari had been avoiding him more than normal.

No, it wasn’t just that she was avoiding him, but that she was completely absent from the orphanage for hours at a time, and he had no idea where she went.

Tom did not like not knowing.

He tried to figure out a way to corner her and demand answers (he remembered the phantom sting of her slap and decided to bring his wand with him in case she decided to get violent a second time), but every time he tried, she was always surrounded by those fucking kids. Sometimes, it was Mary or Amy or even disgusting Billy Stubbs. They gazed at her like she hung the stars in the sky.

** Tom did not like it. **

He could readily admit to his possessive tendencies. He was an obsessive person by nature, taking things that belonged to other people and calling it his own. If the old superstition that one’s animagus form was based on their personality was true, Tom guessed that his form would be a magpie.

Anything shiny or glittery would catch his attention (sometimes for only a day, sometimes for entire years), and Tom wanted to possess it. To claim it and make it his.

Tom was a person who was bored very easily. To him, the world lived in dull shades of grey and stupid ignorance. Very few things in life had ever truly caught his attention.

So, he would search for the gold, hunting for it. Anything to keep his mind from going crazy when the world worked in black and white and he used the full-color spectrum. He craved the stimulation. And he craved the power it gave him over people.

An object wasn’t desirable unless someone else wanted it. It was why, as a child, he stole the toys from other orphans. Admittedly, it was a rather infantile way to get back at them (stealing something valuable right under their noses and making it  _ his _ ), but it kept him satiated.

Then he came to Hogwarts and realized how much more satisfying it was to be able to claim a  _ human. _ To strip them of their pride and conquer them until their hearts and minds belong to you, and they were well and truly  _ yours. _

_ Of course, even among Hogwarts, many of the students still operated in shades of grey. _ There was nothing fun in capturing hearts and minds if the people threw them at your feet without hesitation in the first place. It was the chase that made it fun; the way that they would initially refuse, before slowly succumbing to the layers upon layers of webs that he would weave around them. It was the thrill he felt, knowing that he was powerful enough to force prideful purebloods on their knees before him.

Hari Potter might just have been the most stubborn one of them all.

Tom was reluctantly impressed.

Because the orphans hadn’t stopped fearing him; the youngest ones would whimper if he came too close to them. But Hari had somehow managed to instill such loyalty in her followers that they refused to tell him where she was at whenever he cornered them. Even little Jacob kept his mouth shut (Tom didn’t try too hard with his interrogation—he found no purpose in harming a small and rather insignificant child).

In the end, he decided that the regular, Slytherin methods wouldn’t work (well,  _ they would,  _ but Tom had neither the time nor the patience to go through with them).

He would have to face the situation head-on, like some sort of disgusting Gryffindor (although his methods were much more underhanded than what was expected from those who belonged in the golden house).

He made his move that night when everyone else was asleep.

For someone who sure acted mistrustful towards him, Hari slept like the dead and left herself completely vulnerable to him every night. Of course, Tom had never taken advantage of her—not out of any sense of morality; he simply found rape repulsive and had not needed to physically restrain her beforehand.

Walking over to where she slept, he stood over her.

Carefully, he crawled into her bed, using his knees to hold her legs down on her bed, grabbing her wrists and pinning them above her head. With his free hand, he covered her mouth to muffle any startled screams that she might emit, and waited for her to wake up.

Several moments later, Tom could see her eyelashes fluttering as she groggily opened her eyes, too tired to completely understand the situation. It was only when she tried to move and realized that she couldn’t, did she startle awake.

She didn’t try to scream as he expected. Instead, she laved her tongue over his palm, earning her a disgusted glare. She glared back at him and then glared at his palm, and the meaning was clear: ‘ _ next time, she was going to bite him. _ ’

Slowly, he lowered his hand, letting his fingertips brush against her lips as he did so.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” she questioned him, blunt as always.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” he began, tone conversational. “I wouldn’t have to resort to this if I was able to converse with you like a normal person.”

Hari scoffed, “Don’t you dare try to pin the blame on me. It was your choice to do—whatever  _ this _ is.” She tried to squirm against his grip, to no avail. “Again, that doesn’t tell me what the  _ fuck _ this is.”

“I have questions that I’ve been meaning to ask you, and if I don’t physically restrain you, you are going to find some way to evade the conversation.”

She stared at him incredulously, eyes as green as the killing curse looking ethereal in the moonlight. “You couldn’t have—oh, I don’t know—just grab my wrist or something to prevent me from leaving?” Again, she tugged on her arm. “Why go so far?”

Tom gave her a pleasant, empty smile. “Because you would have punched me if your wrists weren’t restrained. That, and you hate being pinned down like this.”

He felt her breath stutter in her chest and gave her a cruel smile. “Ever since you woke up, your face has grown paler and paler. It’s obvious that you’ve been trying to purposefully keep your breathing even, but it had begun to pick up without you realizing it. Finally, your pupils are dilated. That can be either because of fear or pleasure. However, given the first two reactions, I’m going to go on a limb and say fear.”

He mockingly caressed her cheek, delighting in the way that she growled at him.

Tom watched on in muted fascination as Hari began to blush furiously, the red in her cheeks visible enough to be seen even in the dim light. He could hazard a guess as to why: the two of them painted a very compromising picture should anyone walk in on them.

Slowly, he dropped his gaze to her milky thighs, visible from where her nightgown had ridden up. He could admit to himself that he found the sight pleasing (he was male, after all), but he was too busy to truly pay attention to them.

Physical touch was just as much of manipulation as words, and something he was not above using.

From casually touching someone’s elbow or shoulder, to physically caging them in or pinning them down, it was all a means to an end for Tom.

His intent for pinning Hari down wasn’t one of a sexual nature, he just needed to block her escape. Of course, he was not going to deny the added benefit of living in a society where people viewed it bad if you weren’t ‘proper’. Something like this wouldn’t have bothered anyone if they were as shameless as he.

But alas, the were not, and so pinning Hari down kept her off-kilter, and thus, less likely to fight back.

Hari huffed. “You don’t seem very worried that I’ll call for help.”

Tom smiled thinly at her, “You’re too prideful, or else you would have done so by now.”

Enraged, she took a deep breath, ready to scream her lungs out, and Tom clamped his hand over her mouth once more. He should have known that she would try to do so just to spite him (from what he gathered, Hari Potter was the type of person to do something, because someone else had told her to do the exact opposite).

“Ah, ah, ah,” he chided mockingly, “Don’t go and ruin the fun now.”

He yelped in a mixture of shock and pain as Hari’s teeth bit into the meat of his palm.

“Don’t mess with me,” she growled out, and Tom tried to tie this fierce and jaded fighter, like the Amazons in Greek mythology, with the same girl who smiled brighter than the sun and spoke in low croons and melodic hums to the babes and small children in the orphanage. The dichotomy was breathtaking.

“I take you very seriously when compared to the others here,” Tom admitted, delighting in the way that shock crossed over her features, “Or I wouldn’t have gone so far to get answers out of you.”

She seemed to settle down a bit at his reply, and he wondered if she had personal experiences with the men of this world, and their outdated views of women as inferior (Tom wasn’t sexist; men or women, everyone was inferior when compared to himself).

After moments of visibly struggling with herself, as if coming to a hard decision, Hari completely went limp in his arms, causing him to relax his hold on her a fraction. “I promise not to try and run away,” she stated dully, “Can you please let me go?”

“No can do. It’s because I take you more seriously that I also don’t trust you on merely your word. I’ll let you go once you’ve answered my questions.”

Hari startled, glaring at him. “What are you doing?” she demanded, “You can’t keep me here forever!”

“Of course not, that would be preposterous,” Tom agreed mildly, pearly white teeth glinting in the moonlight as he gave her a sharp grin, “But I can keep you here until morning; goodness knows that I’ve already spent multiple nights studying things that were much more boring. And sure, maybe one of your  _ friends _ could get our bitch of a matron, but do you  _ really  _ want them to see you like this? Just answer my questions—the sooner you do so, the sooner I’ll release you.”

“Fine then,” she spat bitterly, “What are your questions?”

“Where do you go?”

“What?” It would have sounded genuine if she hadn’t averted her gaze. Tom liked the fact that she was a bad liar; it made things easier for him.

“Don’t play dumb, it doesn’t suit you. You are gone for hours at a time, sometimes during the entire day.” She opened her mouth to reply, but he cut her off before she could do so. “And before you say that you were avoiding me (although I suspect that is also the case), I know for a fact that you weren’t even  _ at  _ the orphanage.”

A strange look crossed her face. “I have a job.”

Tom’s mind felt blank. “A what?”

Now, she looked decidedly amused. “A job, Riddle. You know, where you get paid to work. I recently found a job, and that’s where I’ve been at during the day.”

Tom mechanically sat up, releasing his grip on her wrists. Hari, for her part, did not look to be in a particularly violent mood, like he had originally assumed she would.

She did not look to be older than Tom, but perhaps she just had a face that made her look young. “How old are you anyway; aren’t you a bit young to be able to find a job?”

She gave him a dirty look for the comment but answered anyway. “I’m fourteen, but my birthday’s in July.”

Tom felt wronged.

“What do you mean you’re fourteen?!” he demanded, grabbing her arms and pulling her closer. He could feel his face flush from anger and knew from experience that his eyes were glowing red.

It just wasn’t fair! He, being a known genius among Hogwarts, a place with many connections, wouldn’t be able to start working at a job until he was sixteen, yet this  ** fourteen-year-old child ** (and a  ** girl ** at that) was able to do what he couldn’t.

“Get your hands off of me,” she snapped back at him hotly, “And what is  _ that  _ supposed to mean?”

“You are six months younger than me! How the  _ fuck _ do you get a job before I’m able to?!”

Hari stared at him silently for a moment,  _ before _ _ she _ _ burst _ _ out _ _ laughing _ .

Tom snarled at her but otherwise didn’t try to stop her.

“You...you absolute  _ drama queen _ !” she gasped out, still clutching at her side, practically in stitches. Tom hoped she laughed so hard that she pierced a lung. It would be retribution for laughing at him.

“Bold of you to call me a drama queen straight to my face,” he said coldly, gazing at her with ice in his eyes.

Hari did not look perturbed in the slightest, however, she did manage to reign in her laughter to a breathy giggle. Tom started to wonder about the benefits of traumatizing her in some way as he had done to several others here. Certainly, she wouldn’t be laughing at him if she was.

A sound came from outside the door, a loose floorboard creaking loudly in the hallway. Footsteps began walking towards their room.

Hari abruptly stopped giggling, and both teens held their breath (although Tom was unsure why  _ he  _ did so; he could easily overpower Mrs. Cole if push came to shove, with or without his magic).

The footsteps stopped right at the door; a shadowy silhouette stood facing them. A glance at Hari showed the girl was staring at the door with wide eyes, hand over her mouth to keep any noises from escaping, and Tom had the inappropriate thought that she was acting as if they were in the middle of sex in a storage closet, and didn’t want to get caught.

Whoever was outside grumbled, their words indiscernible, and walked off.

Hari stayed motionless, eyeing the door in trepidation for a full minute after the person had left, before she fell gracelessly on her bed, shoulders shaking in silent laughter. Momentarily taken by the insanity that circled the room, Tom felt himself begin to laugh.

It was preposterous. There was nothing funny about the situation, other than how ridiculous the whole thing was. Tom had never laughed genuinely at this wretched orphanage even once before in his life (he rarely laughed at all).

He laughed anyway.

* * *

Hari smiled gently at Anne, wrapping an arm around her smaller frame as the little girl cuddled up close to her side. Between her job and her daily chores, Hari found herself having very little free time. Being able to relax like this was a very appreciated reprieve.

They were sitting under the oak tree in the front, letting the summer breeze brush past them as time passed by lazily.

“Hari?” Anne spoke up, her voice was unusually small.

Hari sat up to properly look at her. “Is there something wrong?” she asked, careful to keep her voice level.

Anne looked momentarily abashed, ducking her head away from Hari’s silent gaze. “No, it’s nothing...I mean, it would be a good thing if it did...but...”

Hari lent down and kissed the bridge of her nose, smoothing back several curls. “Take your time. Dinner isn’t for another couple of hours.”

Anne clambered into her lap, wrapping her thin arms around Hari’s neck and hugging her tightly.

“I’m going to miss you,” she admitted, whispering it into her collarbone.

Hari was, admittedly, drawing a blank at what the little girl was talking about. “I’ll...miss you too?”

Anne laughed wetly. “You are an amazing person, Hari. You’re really smart and pretty and helpful, and people are going to want to adopt you. You’ll probably get adopted before I do, and while I’ll be glad that you have a family, that means that I’ll have to say goodbye to you. And it’ll probably be forever. And I don’t want you to go.”

Oh, dear Merlin, that was a lot to unpack.

Hari tried to swallow around the lump in her throat, feeling quite inadequate when it came to reassuring fears such as those. Or, you know, just making her feel better in general.

Gently, she nudged the girl on her lap, until blue eyes gazed into green. “Hey,” she spoke gently, “You will probably get adopted before me. People like younger children, after all. And when that happens, you’ll be happy with your new parents who would be able to buy you dolls for your birthday and Christmas, and this orphanage will be like a bad dream to you.”

Anne shook her head stubbornly, clinging to Hari even harder. “Nobody wants to adopt me, ‘cause then they’d have to adopt Keith, and they only wanted one child.”

That was the saddest thing that Hari had ever heard, and she decided that she would adopt an entire wizarding family if need be when she went back, even if there were twelve siblings in total.

At the moment, she had a sad child to cheer up.

“Have you ever heard of the story of Hansel and Gretel?”

Midway through the story, Jacob came over to sit with them. Silently, he sat down on Hari's right, placing a hand on Anne’s arm as he rested his head against Hari’s shoulder. Hari didn’t feel too surprised that he had figured something out; he had an uncanny ability to know when someone wasn’t feeling their best.

Anne’s eyes still had that haunted look to them, but now she was slowly allowing herself to become distracted. Hari felt like she shouldn’t teach impressionable children about her habit of ignoring her problems and living in denial, but Anne had a kicked-puppy expression whenever she was sad, and Hari would willingly bend over backward to wipe the expression off her face.

When they got to the point where the witch had locked up Hansel, Anne had buried her face in Hari’s skirt with a whimper. A glance towards Jacob showed that he wasn’t unbothered, either. His face had turned very pale, and he had glanced at the orphanage door like he expected the witch to come out and lock him in a cage next to Hansel.

Hari gave them both a smile, trying not to coo over how adorable they all were. She had a very soft spot for young children.

Like bells chiming in the summer breeze, she gave a tiny laugh, patting them both on the head. “Don’t worry your little heads over it. I’m a good witch and I’ll protect you from all the mean ones.”

Anne perked up, “Like the good witch in the Wizard of Oz?”

“Exactly like that.”

She gasped, delighted, shaking Jacob’s arm much to his displeasure. “No wonder she’s so beautiful, Jacob, she’s probably the nicest witch in the world!”

Jacob looked disgruntled, “What are you talking about?”

Anne huffed, “I heard it from Mary who was able to watch it. In the movie, the good witch of the north said that she was pretty because she was a good witch, and only bad witches were ugly. The reason why Hari’s so pretty is that she’s really, really nice.”

Jacob, forever the little shit, retorted, “I thought she was a princess.”

Anne blushed, raising her shoulders to her ears defensively. “She could be both!” she argued.

Hari cut in before an argument could form. “Are you done yet? Or should I tell the story to someone else who will  _ listen _ ?”

Both children clamped their mouths shut with an audible  _ CLICK. _

In the end, Hari was unable to finish the story, anyway, because it was too scary for Anne. The little girl had started to tear up at the part where the witch was trying to force Gretel into preparing the oven to cook her brother, despite Hari’s frantic reassurances that the siblings would make it out of the house alive and well. It took a long moment to calm the blonde down, and Hari felt Jacob’s judgmental stare boring into the side of her face during the entire time.

They decided they wanted to stay outside longer because this had to have been the nicest day so far since Hari had arrived here. Anne was next to pick what they were going to do because Hari still felt guilty for nearly making her cry.

The little girl had looked adoringly at Hari’s hair and begged Hari to allow her to braid it. Jacob had also looked somewhat wistfully at the hair (her hair was long and thick, and the children at the orphanage all loved to play with it. Hari didn’t mind it; the Dursleys had always called her ugly, and would never do anything like style her hair).

Anne decided that she and Jacob were to have a competition to see who could braid Hari’s hair better. The winner would be decided by Mary (Anne had wanted to use Keith, but Jacob complained about how he would show her favoritism as her older brother).

As such, having children, who were five and six years old, braiding her hair, Hari looked somewhat ridiculous. The braids were messy, and far from symmetrical, but Hari loved it all the same. They had gathered nearby wildflowers and had clumsily woven it into her hair, to make her look, as Anne had suggested, ‘like a forest princess’.

When Mary saw it, she squealed irritably and launched at Hari, hugging her around the waist. “You look so cute!”

Hari grimaced and patted her on the back, unused to being touched so suddenly.

Jacob stomped his foot in impatience, arms crossed over his chest. “Can you  _ please _ decide a winner, already?”

Mary grinned impishly at him, ruffling his hair and bopping him on the nose, laughing when he hissed at her. “Did you actually enjoy braiding her hair? That’s adorable.”

Jacob flushed, stomping his foot some more.

“Alright, alright. I choose...neither!”

Instantly, both children began to complain loudly.

_ “What?!” _

_ “That’s not fair!” _

Mary laughed obnoxiously, and Hari could tell that she was messing with them on purpose. “Both braids make Hari look cute, so both braids are the winners!”

Floundering for an idea to keep a one-sided fight from occurring (Mary might look delicate, but except for Riddle, she’d been there the longest and knew how to wrestle with the best of them), Hari grabbed a couple of violets that were blooming nearby and showed them to the group. “I’ve always wanted to learn how to make flower crowns. Can any of you show me how?”

Mary grabbed Hari’s hands in hers, bringing their faces close together. Hari slowly began to lean as far away from the nearly manic teen as possible, concern growing as she swore she could see Mary’s eyes sparkling.

“I’m going to teach you how to make the most beautiful flower crowns in all of Europe!”

“Uh, yeah...”

* * *

In the end, they decided to make flower crowns for  _ everybody  _ (including the boys).

Mary had delegated Hari into making more than half of the flower crowns that were to go to the boys, giving her a wink and a whisper of, “Don’t worry, they’ll be  _ more  _ than happy to learn that  _ you _ made them a flower crown.”

This left Hari to tilt her head in confusion, wondering if there was some sort of hidden message that she was completely missing right then and there.

Much to the surprise of the others, she also made one for Riddle.

Their relationship was...weird, to say the least. Hari still tried to avoid him whenever possible, because interacting with Tom Riddle never spelled out anything good in Hari’s life. And she still thought that he was an egotistical bastard that needed to be knocked down a peg or four (she wasn’t in any sort of delusion and knew he still viewed her as ‘his’, or something equally toxic and possessive, even if she had no idea  _ why _ he viewed her as such—she was just a muggle to him, after all).

And she would always loathe Voldemort to her very core (even if a part of her felt pity; for something so inhuman that it was almost tragic), but she was starting to separate Tom Riddle from Voldemort. Oh, he was still an evil git, and was possessive, and acted entitled, and was an arsehole to boot, but he was also, undoubtedly,  _ human _ .

He was grouchy very early in the mornings and took his sweet time to look as presentable as possible in those ugly, orphanage uniforms they were forced to wear, and Hari once saw him nearly fall asleep in his porridge at breakfast.

Even if Tom Riddle tossed his flower crown into the trash at the very first chance he has, Hari would have felt guilty if he had been the only one to not receive one.

Hari didn’t give the crown to Riddle directly but waited until he had left the room. Whenever she thought back to the previous night, she felt flushed with a mixture of embarrassment, anger, and curiosity. She had always known at the back of her mind that Tom Riddle was a handsome bastard, but having him straddle her waist meant that she had to deal with his handsome features close up (she could admit that he was handsome without turning into a blithering idiot, and promised herself to knee him in the stomach if he ever tried crap like that again).

Delicately, she placed the flower crown on the center of his bed and left the room as quickly as she had entered it.

Mrs. Cole had loved her flower crown. The surprised expression on her face told Hari that this could have possibly been the very first time that one of her charges had thought of her enough to make her something. (That very day, the orphans gathered together at the dining room for supper all whispered to each other as Mrs. Cole stood at her spot, as usual, a crown of violets and wild lilacs perched on top of her head.)

* * *

Alone in his office, a man by the name of Albus Dumbledore nearly sighed in defeat as he came across yet another dead end.

After learning about the mysterious hero, a person who no one seemed to have any sort of connection to, Albus had made it his mission to find out more about the fellow (and to quite possibly try and recruit him). But there were no names, for as many eye-witnesses as the Aurors managed to round up during the official report.

All that Albus could gather from appearance was that the lad was rather young, with dark hair and the most startling and beautiful green eyes that many of the witnesses had ever seen (Albus, for all of his connections, was not allowed to read the official report, only bits and pieces that his acquaintance from the ministry could gather, and therefore did not know that the person he was looking for was a  _ female _ or a new employee at Flourish n’ Blots).

From beside him, his loyal familiar, Fawkes, trilled soothingly at him, chirping in curiosity as his little beak pecked at a paper that he had yet to review.

Albus smiled, petting the phoenix’s head. “You’re right, my old friend, I shouldn’t give up yet.” His smile twisted into something more bitter. “Besides, there are many men and monsters that the two of us shall have to face together if we wish to come out of this war unscathed.”

His mind, the traitorous thing that it was (and why was it that the things that are most painful to us are the memories most easily remembered?), began to think of Grindelwald, despite their relationship ending in such a spectacular and fiery blaze.

Grindelwald had been his best friend, and someone Albus had trusted over his brother. And while they might not have been dating, Albus had loved him all the same and knew that Gellert had cared for him as well.

His traitorous heart told him that he was still in love with Gellert, no matter how much hurt he had already caused. If Gellert had suddenly stopped what he was doing, and asked Albus to run away with him, Albus would have said yes without hesitation. To him, as selfish as it made him sound, Gellert was more important than the justice that the public would have wanted (and would have deserved) to be served in the case of Azkaban, or some other prison where he would remain until the end of his days.

A part of him still yearned for the dreams the two of them had shared in their youth. Of traveling the world, discovering new and wonderful magics, as well as rediscovering ancient ones. They would have been together, forever, and it would have been magnificent.

Shaking himself out of his reverie, he pulled the paper from the pile and began to skim it over, eyebrows raising in surprise at the sight of something interesting.

** HEIR BLACK TELLS THE TALE OF HOW THE HERO OF DIAGON ALLEY SAVED HIS LIFE. **

Why waste his time on reports that he wasn’t allowed to read when he could gain an audience with the Black family? It would certainly speed up the process, and, hopefully, he would have a name by the end of the month.

At the same time that he made this discovery, Hari was getting ready for bed. Riddle was taking a shower (today had been a rare victory in that Hari had managed to get to the shower first, and thus, had all of the hot water), and she had just finished drying her hair, ready to get into bed.

She had just finished slipping into her nightgown when something on Riddle’s dresser caught her attention.

Hari learned early on that he had a certain place to put his ‘favorite’ things. The muggle book that he gained (stole) from another orphan who had already left. A letter that remained unopened (Hari guessed that it was from a pureblood, and rather than be happy that he had been written to in the first place, Riddle was pleased that he managed to charm someone who would have been considered at a ‘higher status’ than him to write him a letter). And now, her flower crown, neatly placed on the furniture so that none of the petals were squished.

She stared, nearly uncomprehending, before crawling into bed, feeling uncharacteristically happy for reasons unknown to her.


	5. Orion Black

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Orion observed Hari, curious to see what type of person his savior was. As it turned out, his savior was an idiot who was too kind for her own good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM SO SORRY FOR NOT UPDATING SOONER! Writer's block is horrible. In the end, what I wanted to write for chapter five turned out to be very long, so I decided to cut it into two separate chapters. Unfortunately, this chapter is heavily based on dialogue and explaining some of the "rules of the world" which can feel tedious, but is needed to help set the way for later chapters.

Someone was watching her. Hari didn't survive the orphanage with Tom Riddle without developing what seemed like a sixth sense for this sort of thing.

The prickling sensation at the back of her neck flared up, and Hari felt a chill run down her spine. The gaze didn't feel dangerous, such as the gazes of the Death Eaters on that terrifying day. She remembered feeling their malicious intent at the graveyard like it was a physical weight pinning her down.

No, whoever was observing her, they had no intention of causing her harm.

It didn't stop her from feeling unnerved, however.

She never liked the attention, whether good or bad. At the Dursleys, 'attention' was practically synonymous with 'pain'; they took every opportunity they had to explicitly express their hatred for her. From degrading comments to nasty digs at her parents to when they would turn a blind eye whenever the kids in Dudley's gang tried to beat her up, Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia made it very clear how much they viewed her as 'worthless'.

Positive attention was also bad; the Wizarding World taught her that much. Too much positive attention caused others to feel jealous, believing that she didn't deserve it. They called her a diva and accused her of letting her fame get to her head if she so much as asked for help, saying that she just wanted to ride on the coattails of other's hard work. Positive attention also had the possibility of turning on her, her fourth year a prominent example. The media either loved or hated her, and so far, it seemed like they hated her far more than they loved her.

She hated when people touched her without her permission, wanting to be the one to initiate contact first. Hermione and Ron seemed to be some of the only people who understood that, which was why they were her best friends. Even Mrs. Weasley, as much as Hari loved her like the aunt she always wanted to have, made her feel uncomfortable whenever she pulled Hari into one of her spontaneous hugs. And for whatever reason, everyone seemed the be under the assumption that they had a right to her personal space because they gave her (unwanted) attention.

But at her job, no one knew that she would become famous in about half a century into the future. And there was no Tom Riddle to stare creepily at her (Hari still wasn't sure if he knew that she was aware of his staring, and felt pleasure in causing her to feel uncomfortable, or if he truly did not realize how creepy it felt to be stared at). Besides the whole uproar of 'how dare this mudblood breathe in my presence; who let such filth into the Wizarding World', no one was supposed to pay attention to her.

Casually, she gazed around the shop, trying to decipher if the person watching her was someone in the shop, or if they were staring at her through the windows. Within a minute, her eyes met Orion Black's before he quickly gazed away, clearly surprised at being caught.

Hari smirked wryly; of course, it would be him. The Black heir had often come by the shop, sometimes for several moments, others for hours at a time. He didn't usually buy books, but he was quiet and didn't disrupt the other customers, so she allowed him to stay.

She guessed that he was curious about her, since he would not have seen her at Hogwarts despite her age, and yet she somehow managed to save him. She knew the regulars at the store were already gossiping to each other about where they thought she came from and what her family name was, or if she was a muggleborn.

She found it annoying, especially when they didn't bother to lower their voices, but simply ignored it.

She didn't bother to call him out on it when she first found out. Instead, she was curious to see if he would find the nerve to talk to her.

As it turns out, the answer was 'no, he will not'. After finding out that it was Orion who was observing her, the itch at her neck faded a bit, Hari feeling slightly more comfortable at the fact that it was someone she was already familiar with.

Orion did not make a move to initiate contact with her. Instead, he would sit in one of the sofas at the back and simply observe her. This happened for several days; he would silently observe her until she gave him a knowing look, to which he would stare down at whatever book he was holding, the tips of his ears red from the embarrassment at being caught.

* * *

Orion Black was confounded. Yes, he was thirteen and had only completed his second year at Hogwarts, however, he was smart (nearly sorted into Ravenclaw) and had some of the best grades in his year. He had a brain and knew how to use it to problem-solve. Yet for some reason, Hari No-One-Knew-Her-Last-Name turned into an unsolvable puzzle.

She simply didn't make sense.

As the Black Heir, he gave her the prime opportunity to be able to call upon the entire might of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black. He knew many people who would kill for a life debt from the Heir of such an influential family such as his. She could ask for any favor: money, a secured job, or even becoming adopted into the Black family as a vassal and holding more prestige than certain purebloods (something that would help her chances of getting ahead if the rumors about being a muggleborn were correct).

Instead, she wastes it within ten seconds of receiving it by telling him that she wants him to 'stay safe'. Orion could feel it; the magic binding him to her request. It was why vows were held in such high regard, even ones where the participant gives only their word on their honor. Magic held them accountable, and thus any deal made with it would be finished unless you want the backlash that your magic would give you.

Orion wasn't sure if she was raised by muggles, and had wasted a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity out of sheer ignorance, or if she knew what she was doing and truly was that stupid.

When he heard Lord Nott complain to his father about some 'new mudblood girl' who had started working at Flourish n' Blots, Orion grew excited.

For the next week or so, he figured out her schedule and made sure to sneak away and visit the shop whenever he had time. He would then observe her, curious to see what type of person his savior was.

As it turned out, his savior was an idiot who was too kind for her good.

She was genuine to the point where she practically wore her heart on her sleeve. She was also perceptive, knowing whenever he was looking at her, for she would eye him back with a small smirk. This led Orion to conclude that she knew what she was doing when she wasted that debt.

She was also powerful. She might try to hide it behind a quiet persona, but Orion had always been magically sensitive and hers sparked off her skin, electrifying Orion in the best ways whenever he stepped too close. She was like a panther, movements languid and easy, playful even as there was an air of danger, an understanding that the only reason why she was not a threat was that she chose not to be.

Hari was powerful, even if she had yet to realize her full potential.

Beauty, power, perceptive, and with an inclination towards cunning, she would have been the perfect Slytherin.

_If only she wasn't so trusting!_

Honestly, Orion has met Hufflepuffs who were warier towards strangers than Hari. She was open and friendly to everyone she talked to at her job. Part of him was impressed, especially when she remained polite and professional towards the idiots who talked about her in broad daylight. Another part of him wanted to tear out his hair in frustration _because how can one person be so dense when it came to others flirting with her?!_

Other students had begun to hang around Flourish n’ Blots after she had started working there. Orion had watched others brag about their family name, wealth, or influence to impress her. Hari would smile politely at them and proceed to tell them how much their purchase cost.

When her suitors realized that their material assets weren’t going to impress her, they began to give her compliments: everything from her hair to her eyes to her smile. One brave soul had gone a step further and had given her a pearl bracelet. Hari had given it back at told him that whoever was going to receive the bracelet was a very lucky person, her expression showing nothing but genuine honesty. The boy had stuttered out an excuse and high-tailed out of the bookstore.

It was the single most painful thing that Orion had ever witnessed.

Hari was simply a mess of contradictions, and Orion’s head hurt whenever he thought too hard about it.

“Hello,” a voice spoke up from beside him. Orion would deny it to his dying breath how much it had startled him. Hari had snuck up when he was pondering over his thoughts, casually leaning against a bookshelf with feigned disinterest. “I have a question I want to ask you.”

“Yes, what can I help you with?”

She looked distinctly amused. “I’ve noticed that you’ve been staring at me for quite a while, these past few days or so. I wanted to ask you why.”

_Sure, so she knows when someone is staring at her, yet she doesn’t realize that the people calling her pretty are trying to flirt with her._

“Genuine answer or polite one?”

She snorted. “Can’t it be both?”

“I was taken aback by your beauty,” he deadpanned.

She gave a cough that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. “Genuine answer, then.”

“I was curious,” he answered honestly, “Do you have any idea what you had wasted during the attack?”

Hari shook her head. “I’m afraid not, so please explain.”

“You saved my life, so I owed you a life debt. Life debts are one of the most powerful debts in existence. You could virtually ask for anything from me or even the Black House as a whole since I’m the heir. Money, prestige, a secure job at any place you want to work. You could even ask to be adopted into the Black Family as a vassal and hold more influence and prestige than most purebloods, making it so no one would ever call you a ‘mudblood’ again. Instead, you waste it by telling me to stay safe, and I wanted to know if you gave up your debt out of ignorance or sheer stupidity.”

Unlike many other females (or just people, in general), she didn’t become angry at him for his callousness. Instead, she smiled at him as if she found his assessment of her amusing.

“Oh? And which do you think it is?” Her tone was light, playful.

As the Black Heir, he had to be all the more cautious when speaking to others, especially in public. Political scandals and entire family feuds have been started for less than a careless phrase that could have been taken as an insult. The Malfoys and the Weasleys were the examples that every pureblood used when explaining this fact.

As such, every pureblood worth their salt was a master in the skillset of _grin and lie through their teeth no matter how much they currently hated the person in front of them._ It was exhausting.

So, to have Hari _asking_ for his true feelings, it was too good an opportunity to pass by. He wouldn’t make her cry, of course. She didn’t seem like the type of person who cried easily, and Orion was afraid that she’d snap him in half with her raw magic alone.

“A bit of both, if I’m being honest. You don’t seem like you’re completely unaware of the culture here, unlike many muggleborns your age. But if you were at least aware that my debt to you was a _big deal_ , then that means that you willingly gave it up to ask for something useless. Thus, your stupidity.”

Hari’s carefree expression melted away, and Orion wondered if he had gone too far.

“It wasn’t stupid.”

He paused, startled. “Excuse me?”

“My request was for you to stay safe. I know your magic guided you to your sister and through the safest way out as a consequence. Ensuring your safety wasn’t stupid. Bargaining to let you have as much of a chance as you possibly could to come out of there alive wasn’t useless. It was one of the most meaningful things that I could have ever asked for; and if given a second try, I’d do it again.”

Orion swallowed down the lump in his throat. Hari was looking at him with such sincerity, more than anyone else besides his sister had ever shown him, and a baffling part of him wanted to cry.

Hari’s face suddenly flushed from embarrassment, the realization of speaking rather forcefully to one of the most influential heirs in the entire wizarding world catching up to her. Hastily, she stepped back, giving him space.

But public areas like these weren’t the places for heart-to-hearts and Orion safely locked away his emotions, giving her a polite smile that betrayed none of his feelings. “It’s alright,” he spoke, “Thank you for saving my life.”

It was more than that. _Thank you for saving my life. Thank you for being genuine. Thank you for caring about me. Thank you for telling me that my life means something beyond my family’s prestige. Thank you._

She beamed at him. “I’m happy you’re alright! I have to get back to work, but if you promise to be very careful with the books, I’ll allow you to sit down and read them here.” Her grin turned sly. “Of course, if you damage anything, you’ll have to pay for it.”

Orion nodded in affirmation, curling up on a chair with a tome of advanced hexes and jinxes. Slytherin could be a rather cut-throat house to be sorted into, and the more you had at your disposal, the better.

* * *

It had been an entire week since Hari confronted him that Orion had the free-time to sneak away and visit the bookshop. This time, he brought his summer homework with him to work on.

Hari smiled and waved at him from behind the counter, and Orion wondered if she knew how welcoming she was.

The bookshop was rather quiet, much to his enjoyment. Curling up on a spare lounge chair, he sprawled out his books and quills and parchment, glancing back up at Hari every once in a while.

Time passed by lazily, and Orion was grateful for the moment of peace.

“You’re doing it wrong.”

He startled, whipping his head back to see Hari looking at him in amusement. She pointed at the essay he had been working on. It was Herbology; an essay on the common deadliest plants and how to deal with them. He had chosen Devil’s Snare.

“Your notes and facts on the Devil’s Snare are nearly spot-on,” she admitted, giving him a small smile, “But your ideas on how to deal with the plant are too textbook-oriented. Fire is not what the Devil’s Snare is scared of, but the light that it brings.” She would know from experience, after all. “The Devil’s Snare tightens their hold on a person the more they squirm around and struggle. Normally, people will tell you to not move around to not make your situation worse, but from my experiences of being in scary and dangerous situations, keeping calm from the very start is difficult for many people.”

Orion pursed his lips, glaring at the parchment as if had offended his mother. “It makes sense, but how can people get free if they panic and make the situation worse for themselves? Once they struggle and the Devil’s Snare tightens it’s holding on them, they will only panic further, which will lead to their situation growing even worse.”

“That’s why you don’t bother telling people not to struggle.”

He gave her a blank stare. “Excuse me?”

She gave an awkward laugh. “I’m not saying that they should _try_ to struggle, especially since they could hurt themselves while doing so, but I’m saying that the way that they will get free should develop around the fact that they are going to struggle at least a little bit. They won’t always be able to use their wand to cast so much as a _lumos_ , especially if their arms are tangled up in the vines.”

Belatedly, Orion realized that she had been standing there the entire time because his books were strewn across the lounge. Gathering them up and pushing them to the side, he motioned for her to sit down. Hari did so with a grateful smile.

Sitting down next to her, Orion realized that they were nearly the same height.

“If they can’t reach their wand, then how do you expect them to free themselves in the first place? You said it yourself, Devil’s Snare is scared of light. If someone got caught in their vines, then they automatically are in a place with little-to-no light.”

She grinned at him. “That’s the beauty of magic; no rule is truly set in stone. We only believe so because no one was brave enough to try and prove otherwise. You’re having pre-conceived notions and that’s why you’re struggling with this assignment so much.”

Orion felt like growling. “Will you just tell me what you are talking about?!”

“Why are you acting like a person’s chances at escaping is next to zero if they are unable to use their wand?”

He stared at her, aghast, but she looked completely serious. “ _They won’t be able to use their magic_ ,” he stressed.

She let out a small hum. “That’s interesting. Are the wands magic? If a muggle were to stumble across one by complete accident, will they be able to use magic as well?”

“N-No, of course not! We’re the ones with magic…” Snapping his head up to meet her gaze, he stared at her incredulously. “Are you suggesting wandless magic?”

“Bingo!”

He shrugged off the weird reference, not understanding what it meant. “Sure, maybe a handful of powerful wizards and witches can do so, but everyone will be out of luck. They can’t cast spells without their wand, it’ll be impossible for them.”

Hari Whatever-Her-Name was insane, and Orion cursed her for causing him to get attached. He was one of the only sane members of the Black family left, and she was going to end up driving him to the breaking point, he just knew it.

“Before we get our wands, every wizard and witch experience bouts of uncontrolled magic, usually during times of heightened emotions. This will usually happen a handful of times before you even reach your eighth birthday, when your magical core is not even a third of the way developed, so I daresay that wandless magic is quite possible.”

“But if it’s so simple, then why do many adults find such a thing impossible for them?” he argued.

Hari shook her head, “I’m not saying that it’s simple, but it’s something that everyone has the potential to possess. If someone tries to use wandless magic to defend themselves and cast spells without any sort of experience or training, they would fail miserably.”

“But not everyone who encounters the Devil’s Snare will have experience.”

“I know,” Hari answered blithely, “but they don’t need to have any.”

Orion felt his eyebrow twitch at the contradiction—wasn’t she supposed to be the older one between the two of them? “Explain…please.”

“You go to Hogwarts to learn not only the spells but also how to effectively channel your magic. As a child with no proper training, your magic ran rampant as your magical core grew and built up until you held too much for your body to handle and it made itself known as a burst of accidental magic. Once you went to Hogwarts and began practicing actual spells, your bouts of accidental magic practically dwindled to nothing with the rare exception of your magic instinctively reacting to your emotions if they were heightened enough. Have you ever wondered why that was so, even though your magical core doesn’t cease to grow until sometime when you’re seventeen?”

She stared at him expectantly, and Orion realized that she was waiting for him to reply. Slowly he nodded to her, wondering where she was going with her explanation.

“Accidental magic is when you have too much magic for your core to handle, so it gets rid of it in a way that is supposed to help the person it belongs to. Magic is alive and inside all of us, so that’s why it’s linked so strongly to our emotions. But when you are consistently using spells and charms, it helps to regulate your magic levels.”

_Hari remembered all of her study sessions with Hermione. She loved Ron, but he grew up with magic and had no appreciation for it beyond: ‘At least I don’t need to do everything by hand like a muggle’. He couldn’t see what an amazing gift that magic was, and thus, had no interest in studying it._

_But Hari knew. She and Hermione got it. Until they came to Hogwarts, they didn’t have magic. They understood that they never truly belonged in the muggle world, but they never understood why. Hermione had beautiful parents who loved her, and Hari was happy for her, but she also knew that Hermione viewed Hogwarts as her first **real** home, just as Hari had._

_It was why they held such a thirst for knowledge. Sometimes, Ron only got passable grades because he had known about the basic theory even before he entered Hogwarts. Sometimes, he would look at them strangely, or laugh at their ignorance in a topic that was thought of as widely known, like “common sense”, because he took his experiences of living in the magical world for granted._

_That wasn’t a luxury that Hari or Hermione could afford. Anything they knew about the wizarding world was because they had taken the time and effort to study it._

_Thinking of Ron and Hermione and the fact that she might never see her siblings again—that she would not feel Ron ruffling her hair or Hermione slipping into her bed whenever she was having a nightmare—no longer caused her to feel like a chasm had opened up from inside of her, but it still pierced her. She blinked back the tears, refusing to cry, especially in front of Sirius’ father._

“This is also why you use wands. Wands are the conduit for you to focus your magic at a certain point. Without wands or any experience with casting wandless magic, a witch or wizard has no way to channel their magic to be specific enough to successfully cast a spell. I could try to cast a _protego_ , but even if it formed, it would easily shatter and cause me to waste my magic needlessly. Every person’s magic is different, even if they share similarities to their biological family, which is why we have our wand; the wand specific to our magic. Without a wand, the magic pours _out of us_ , instead of at a specific point. Trying to cast a spell without a wand takes up over a hundred times the amount of magic it takes with a wand, which is why so many people fail at wandless magic. They have no idea how to channel their magic without a wand and exhaust themselves trying to make up for it by increasing the magic they put into the spell.”

Orion felt himself narrowing his eyes at her, “Then how is _lumos_ any different?”

Hari grinned at him, “I’ll show you!”

Orion raised an eyebrow and she stood up. Speaking softly so that only he could hear her, she chanted out, “ _Lumos!_ ”

A ball of light began to glow in her hands when she cupped them together. Startled, and in awe, he jerked forward to see it more clearly.

“This is what it looks like when I channel my magic,” Hari explained, “but most people would be unable to do so, so it would look more like this—”

The light disappeared from her palms and instead seemed to diffuse throughout her entire body until she was aglow in dim light.

“It’s dimmer,” Orion commented, but he smiled when he finally realized what she had been talking about, “but that’s alright because if they truly tried to power the spell, it would scare off the Devil’s Snare either way.”

Hari nodded in agreement, “And because it’s just _lumos_ , you don’t have to worry about it having negative effects on your body like you would with other charms or spells.”

Orion gave her a rare, genuine smile. “What school did you go to? You seem to have a better cumulative knowledge of magic than many people at Hogwarts.”

Hari flushed and averted her eyes shyly, “It’s nothing much, mostly just self-study. And actually, I have quite a few holes in my education—I was tutored from home, you see, and let’s just say that some of the tutors were… _better at teaching_ than others.”

Orion had a feeling that was Hari trying to nicely say that only some of the tutors were competent in what they taught.

Hari had to go back to the counter, but she would stop by every once in a while, and check on his progress with the essay. At one point in time, she gave him part of her sandwich, saying that it was well past lunchtime and claiming that she wasn’t hungry because she ate a big breakfast.

He knew that she couldn’t have been completely truthful when she mentioned that she wasn’t hungry (although she was rather petite for her age and Orion wouldn’t have been surprised if a single sandwich filled her up), so split the sandwich in half and gave her the bigger piece. She froze, seeming stunned for a moment before she smiled at him gratefully and practically bounced back to the counter.

If she had been homeschooled so far, it was unlikely that she was a muggleborn. It was a good thing, not because Orion disliked muggleborns on principle, but because it was better for her future in the long-run if she wasn’t a muggleborn.

Many purebloods, from both dark and light families, held a certain disdain towards the muggleborns. Not necessarily because they thought that the muggleborns had weaker magic (though many also felt that way), but because muggleborns tried to shove their muggle traditions onto the Wizarding World.

They got rid of Samhain and placed ‘ _Halloween’_ in its stead. Many of the traditional rituals that many purebloods practiced during the Summer and Winter Solstice were banned. The muggleborns became squeamish at the thought of purposefully shedding your blood (usually a shallow cut to the palm or arm) in exchange for Magic to bless you.

That was the most annoying thing about muggleborns; they did not grow up in magic yet they thought they knew what was best. Orion had never tried to force a muggleborn to celebrate what he celebrated, so he did not appreciate it when they wanted to force him to be unable to celebrate it in the first place.

 _Well_ , he thought as he glanced at yet _another_ scene of someone flirting with Hari, _it seems like she can unknowingly cause others to become infatuated with her, muggleborn or not._

However—and Orion frowned when he noticed it—Aurelianus Crabbe, an older cousin of Irma Crabbe and a Quidditch fanatic who had been a seventh year when Orion had been a first-year, was giving Hari a look that made Orion uncomfortable just to watch.

While Aurelianus couldn’t have been more than four or five years older than her (and there had been many marriages with much larger age-gaps), he was notorious for stringing girls along. It was an open secret how he constantly went behind the back of his intended, unhappy with who his family had chosen for him, looking for new _conquests_.

And even though Hari was stubborn and painstakingly oblivious when it came to matters like these, Aurelianus could be rather suave and charismatic when he wanted to be. If he kept at it, there would be a real possibility that Hari would begin to accept his advances.

But Hari was nice, as juvenile as the thought made Orion feel. She was smart and stupid and brave and stubborn and a bit of a jerk, if he was being honest (because he **knew** she had been frustrating on purpose). She saved his life for the single, selfless reason of wanting to save someone in trouble and then used his debt to her to keep him safe and she didn’t deserve to become just another notch on Crabbe’s bedpost.

Walking up to her, he made sure to meet Aurelianus’ gaze before he turned his attention back to Hari.

“Thank you, Hari, for the sandwich.” He didn’t raise his voice and shout it or anything so ridiculously obvious, but he spoke clearly and just loud enough so that Aurelianus could hear him.

Hari glanced at him, knowing that this was somewhat unusual behavior for him, but deciding not to call him out on it. That was perfectly fine with Orion because this warning wasn’t just for Aurelianus, but any potential suitor of Hari’s.

“Heir Black,” she greeted neutrally, but a moment later she smiled at him, “I’m glad you enjoyed it; you seemed hungry.”

He gave her a bright, media-worthy smile. “Oh, don’t be so formal, Hari, _you saved my life after all_. Call me Orion, instead. We are acquaintances, at the very least.”

“Alright then, Orion,” Hari conceded. “If you ever need help with other schoolwork, I would be more than happy to help you.”

“I’ll keep it in mind, thank you.”

A glance towards Aurelianus showed that the older teenager was glaring at him. Orion smiled back; smug in the knowledge that the pureblood couldn’t touch him. He might have been a Crabbe, but Orion was the _Black Heir_ , and thus could get away with murder in the eyes of the Wizarding World. And with Hari now under his protection, she became untouchable by proxy.

Oh, it wasn’t something official, but it worked just as well. Aurelianus could continue to pursue her to his heart’s content, but at his own risk. If he ended up doing something that displeased Orion, well, it was surprisingly easy to blacklist someone from every notable job or position the Ministry of Magic had to offer. And as pretty as Aurelianus found Hari to be, he wasn’t suicidal enough to throw away his chance at a respected job.

Of course, if the rest of his family learned that he put an unknown witch of dubious origins under his protection, they would end up being most displeased with him. He still thought that he could win them over when talking about how she saved his life, as that was a very good excuse for what could have been considered by some as a poor lapse of judgment. It would still suck and was something that Orion wanted to avoid for as long as possible.

Oh, Merlin, a month ago Orion wouldn’t have let the thought of bringing some _random girl_ under his protection even cross his mind. Perhaps he did have the Black Madness like every single one of his other family members. For some reason, the thought didn’t upset him as much as he thought it would have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not planning to put Hari into a relationship with this "Aurelianus", so you don't have to worry. Also, Their age difference would be closer to four years, since he recently turned nineteen and Hari's fifteenth birthday is just around the corner. Still, the age difference would make me uncomfortable anyways if Hari is only fifteen, so it's very unlikely that I will end up writing pedophilia unless it's only referenced and to further the plot in a significant way.


	6. Hari Meets a Peacock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hari meets a peacock during her job, and the Black siblings talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the comments, I've had some people say on how they thought that Orion and Hari could be cute together. I don't plan on giving a romantic aspect to their relationship in this story, however, if people want me to make a one-shot about them, then please let me know in the comments. I was thinking about making a series of one-shots based off of this story; some of them could include HarixOrion if people would like to read it. Please let me know what you think.
> 
> (But be forewarned, if I write something that includes any kisses or anything of the sort, I will age up the characters slightly because thirteen is a little young for my comfort.)

Hari decided that she liked it whenever Orion was able to visit her. He was a breath of fresh air, sarcasm, and all, and she had never been so _grateful_ for friendship such as theirs.

He didn’t comment on her dubious origins, despite being from a family as distinguished as his. He was quiet when she didn’t want to talk and recognized when a topic in their conversation was making her uncomfortable, effortlessly diverting her attention to something else. He was also interesting to hang around, despite being around a year and a half younger than herself.

She had been in the past for several months, away from everyone she knew, and she felt like she was drowning. She loved Amy and Mary and Anne and her brother and Jacob very dearly, and never thought of them as a type of _replacement_ for the people she’s lost, but they could never truly _understand_ her.

She knew Tom, knew the darkness he held inside himself and his desires and what he could become ( ~~she knew him better than anyone else ever could~~ ), but she couldn’t get close to him. The risk was too high. Tom was too obsessive, too unhealthy. He would chew her up whole and spit her out a hollow shell of what she once was.

So, she clung to Orion like a lifeline. Out of everyone in the past, he was the one she was closest to.

She never spoke it out loud, and he never asked, but sometimes, when her thoughts would get too loud for her brain and a part of her simply wanted to collapse in defeat because _she was weak and why was this affecting her so much it’s already been **months**_ , he would take her hand in his own and squeeze it, never complaining when she gripped it hard enough for the skin to turn white.

But she could have him around every time she worked at Flourish n’ Blots, so she quickly came to appreciate the days he _could_ visit her. Saving his life had turned out to be one of the best decisions that she had ever made.

(She could also appreciate it whenever he was able to sneak her candy, quickly learning of her sweet tooth.)

(After the first time he had given her a sugar quill, Hari had tried to politely decline it, uncomfortable with having people spend money on her. Orion had none-too-politely told her to “stuff it” and proceeded to buy her a chocolate frog the next week. He was a Black, he told her, and had enough money to buy Hogwarts and still come out as one of Britain’s richest families.)

He hadn’t visited her in about two weeks, and his absence stung a bit.

Of course, Hari was quick to brush the feeling aside. She was not some helpless damsel and knew how to ignore any hurt she may have felt. He probably had a busy schedule and she would not sulk just because she missed the person whom she considered to be her best friend.

“Hello,” a rather snobby voice spoke up, and Hari quickly looked up from the book she was reading to stare at Draco Malfoy.

Wait, no—Draco had shorter hair. This must have been Abraxas, his grandfather.

Quickly, she plastered on a smile for him. “Hello, how may I help you?”

He glanced at her dismissively. “I require assistance in finding _The Dawn of the Rise in Dark Arts_.”

He was pompous and annoying but reminded her too much of his grandson for Hari to feel any true anger at him.

“Shall I point you in the general direction of where we keep our books on curses and the darker arts, sir, or shall I help you find it myself?”

Malfoy looked distinctly put upon, which confused her because Hari has been ruder to the Minister of Magic (even though Fudge was a total joke) and Hari wasn’t trying to be rude on purpose.

“That’s _Heir Malfoy_ to you,” and she just barely managed to stop herself from rolling her eyes, “and yes, I want you to help me search in person for the book.”

She grinned wider. “Right away, _Heir Malfoy_.” Was she messing with him a bit? Absolutely. But watching him give a violent twitch had her pressing her lips together to not smirk at him.

He scowled at her, but then hid it in a delicate cough, face blank once more.

Standing up, she didn’t miss his poorly disguised look of disdain as he eyed her clothing (the ugly, plain uniforms that they were forced to wear at the orphanage). Apart of her wanted to coo at him because _aww, many others wouldn’t bother hiding their disgusted looks_. It wasn’t out of any concern for her feelings, Hari was sure, but it didn’t stop the attempt from being rather adorable.

Because at this time, she has been called a mudblood. And she’ll continue to be called a mudblood. And even though it’s unfair and Hari wasn’t going to remain complacent when it happened, she understood that it would exhaust her to get angry every time someone did something remotely not-nice. There was no use in feeling indignant when someone thought her outfit looked ugly when she thought the same.

Abraxas was looking at her the same way that Draco would eye Ron whenever he saw him wear his Weasley Christmas sweater, and Hari was able to count to six in her head before he spoke to her.

“Why are you dressed in rags? Aren't there laws that ban used clothing stores from selling items of such poor quality? How did you even find something so ugly?”

Hari felt a burst of genuine amusement and smothered down a bark of laughter. Instead, she began leading him to the back of the store. “Maybe I just enjoy wearing clothing like this.”

He looked almost disturbed at her answer, probably expecting anger, and Hari turned to smile beatifically at him. He would need to try harder if he wanted to rile her up.

He scoffed at her. “How poor do you have to be to willingly dress like _that_?”

Her grin was so wide it was starting to hurt. There was no way that she would admit to living in an orphanage, and so she chose to say something that would hurt her pride the least. “Pretty poor, I would imagine.” And it was the truth.

She was poor. She couldn’t create her bank account at Gringotts because the goblins demanded a flat sum of money, and she had yet to earn that much. But despite what others might have thought, she was perfectly fine with no longer having the Potter money at her disposal. There had been a time all she had to wear were Dudley's hand-me-downs and the only present she received on Christmas was a break from her chores because the Dursleys would lock her in her cupboard and out of sight for the guests.

Compared to that, she was living in luxury.

Her blonde companion wrinkled his nose at her. “Have you no shame? At least buy wizarding robes if you are going to work here. Then again,” quickly glanced over her once more, he took no more than a second to look at her clothes, “I suppose you have a certain natural beauty that, if gazed at in the right lighting, could make up for those rags you call clothing.”

Hari had the entirely unhelpful urge to ask him how much it had pained him to give her that back-handed compliment. Then she wondered if he would complain and threaten to tell his father if she pushed his buttons like her Malfoy did whenever something wasn’t going his way.

But she needed her job, and couldn’t afford to be blacklisted, or whatever his father would do in retribution.

Instead, she turned to the bookcase that would have held the book that Abraxas was looking for. “It’s somewhere here,” she told him, already skimming over the covers on the top shelf, “Unfortunately for you, Heir Malfoy, the books here aren’t sorted in alphabetical order, of either the authors or the titles, so you’ll have to help me search if you want to find it faster.”

Abraxas looked utterly indignant. “Are you trying to command _me_?!”

Hari held her breath and counted to ten in her head. “Of course not, Heir Malfoy, I was only stating a fact. Two people should search for something instead of just one person. But if you don’t mind waiting, I can look for your book myself.”

The Malfoy Heir gave her a dirty look before he began to search for his book as well. “It would do you well to learn some manners.”

Hari did not bother to point out that her manners were perfectly fine, and that it was _he_ who was too sensitive. He was practically a carbon copy of his grandson, who was just as much of a diva as he was turning out to be.

They managed to quietly search for several minutes until Abraxas spoke up again (and at this point, Hari couldn’t help but wonder if he spoke so much because he liked the sound of his voice).

“I would have remembered if I had seen you at Hogwarts. Not once in my five years there have I seen you in the hallways or the Great Hall. Did you perhaps go to another school?”

In her defense, she _had_ been at Hogwarts, just not during this period. “I haven’t gone to Hogwarts.”

“So, does that mean you are a squib? What’s your surname?”

Hari ignored his questioning, taking out a book with the same title that they were looking for, “Is this it, Heir Malfoy?”

He straightened his posture, snatching it out of her hands. Hari wanted to scowl at how rude he was being but found it hard to feel anything more than an annoyance when he was acting like a spoilt child. He was like a little kid, selfish and arrogant, and so she had trouble taking his horrid attitude seriously.

“It is. But you haven’t answered me; does this mean you admit to being a squib?”

Rolling her eyes, she turned on her heel and began walking back to the counter. “ _Wingardium Leviosa,”_ she snapped out, not even bothering to take out her wand as she felt her magic leave her in a rush. She didn’t need to turn around to know that the book had started to float behind her. Abraxas’ shout of surprise only further proved the fact.

“For your information, _Heir Malfoy_ , you did not see me at Hogwarts because I was homeschooled.”

“ _Oi, Malfoy!”_

Abraxas turned to sneer at the new person butting into their conversation.

“ **Lupin.** ” He said it as if the name, itself, was an insult.

Hari wondered how this teen was related to Remus.

No, _focus_ , she didn’t want a fight to break out in the store. And with the way the two were appraising each other, the possibility was looking more and more likely.

“May I help you with something?” Abraxas spoke, dismissive.

Puffing out his chest, Lupin pointed an accusing finger at the Malfoy Heir. “How about you take your pompous arse and go bother someone somewhere else!”

Abraxas sneered at him, slapping his hand away. “I was looking for a book. Where else do you suggest I go?”

“Why not Knockturn Alley?” he replied nastily, “It’s right up your alley, after all.”

Hari’s eyes widened, something ugly beginning to claw its way up her chest. She did not like where this conversation was heading.

“Oh?” Abraxas’ eyes flashed dangerously. His smile twisted into something sharp until it was more of a baring of teeth than anything else. “My first language is French, so I sometimes have trouble understanding English,” he spoke in perfect, unaccented English, “Would you mind terribly if I asked you to explain what you meant?”

Lupin’s expression turned just as twisted. “Let me speak slowly, then. Dark. Wizards. Such. As. Yourself. Don’t. Belong. Here. Go back to France.”

Abraxas’ expression morphed into outrage, and Hari could see the way his hands were clenched into fists at his sides. She opened her mouth to cut in before the situation could escalate even further, but the blonde spoke up before she had the chance. “I know how frustrated you must be. But you don’t have the right to take it out on others just because you’re practically half-squib and an embarrassment to your family name.”

Lupin snarled at him, and Abraxas responded by giving him a condescending smile. “Woof.”

“It _is_ my right when I see you acting like a right prat to a pretty girl who’s done nothing to you! Merlin, you truly have no idea how annoying you come across as. Do us all a favor and just go back to your father and follow that Dark Lord of yours. It’s all your family is ever good for, anyway.”

Hari gave a wordless snarl, stepping in between them. She glowered at Lupin. “You have no right to say those things. Don’t try to use me as an excuse; you just wanted to pick a fight. I had him quite handled, thank you very much, and I didn’t need your _help_. I can stand up for myself.” She turned to glower at Abraxas as well, much to his surprise. “Yes, he is also partly at fault for escalating things, but it was you who started it. Those comments of yours? You weren’t standing up for me. You just wanted to hurt him. If you can’t behave civilly, then I will have to ask you to leave.”

Lupin sneered at her, not expecting her to call him out on his bs. “It’s an open-secret where his family ties lie. He’s a _Slytherin_ , not some innocent, little angel.”

“ _I don’t give a damn about his Hogwarts’ House or his family’s political views!”_ she snapped back savagely, anger coursing through her. “It’s none of my business, anyways. Right here, right now? He’s a Flourish n’ Blot’s customer just like everyone else. He deserves to shop here just as much as you do.”

Lupin’s expression twisted in resentment. “ _Fine, then,”_ he hissed, “ _See if I ever stick up for you again._ ” And without another word, he stormed out of the shop, drawing the attention of the other customers even further to the scene.

A sneer and the words, _‘Don’t you have anything better to do?’_ via Abraxas had them turning back to their shopping.

He looked at her strangely as she gave him his receipt. “Thank you for sticking up for me. I’ll admit that it was a bit unexpected.”

Hari gave an inelegant shrug of her shoulders. “I don’t like bullies,” she said simply.

“ _You also appear to despise etiquette books,_ ” Abraxas muttered under his breath. “Stay right there.”

“I’m staying.” She droned wryly, gesturing to her place behind the counter.

Abraxas rolled his eyes in an uncharacteristically _human_ display, and Hari felt inordinately proud of herself. Walking to a random bookshelf, she could hear him muttering to himself. “ _Not this one, not this one either.”_ After about a minute of furious searching, the Malfoy Heir came back with a book titled _101 Rules of Etiquette Critical for the Beginner._

It was a very pointed gift, but Hari found the fact that he bought her something in the first place both amazing and bizarre. “Thank you, Heir Malfoy.”

He hummed, “If you want to thank me, you can buy robes to wear rather than that disgrace you call an outfit. Just looking at it burns my eyes.”

* * *

Orion couldn’t help but feel guilty. He knew that normally, he would have stopped by to visit Hari by now, but he was _busy_.

His role as the Black Heir always came first: before friends, hobbies, and even interests at school. He had duties that he needed to uphold, and unless he wanted his father to enquire about where he went (which he _didn’t_ ), then he needed to not slack off.

So far, his father and mother knew that he frequented Diagon Alley (they weren’t **idiots** ), but they mostly left him to his own devices. They weren’t worried because it hadn’t affected his role as heir. If he started putting aside his responsibilities for visiting his friend, and they _were_ friends, then his parents would immediately want to put a stop to whatever was distracting him.

He wanted to keep it that way. Because they were steadfast in their beliefs and they might just demand Orion to stop seeing Hari even if she didn’t distract him from his responsibilities for the sole fact that she wasn’t a pureblood. The only way that they would probably change their minds was if Hari were to demonstrate her magical prowess.

He loved his family but felt that his views did not quite align with theirs, taking on a more moderate approach.

And honestly speaking, Orion couldn’t pin down just _what_ it was that drew him to Hari.

Oh, she was certainly smart (when it came to certain things, at least). She was also powerful and knew how to control her magic better than anyone else he had ever seen (except for Albus Dumbledore and that one Slytherin, ~~Tom Riddle~~ ). She had a sense of humor. Orion wouldn’t have been surprised if she had been a prankster at one point in time.

She was also one of the most genuinely kind people that he had the pleasure of knowing. And despite her manners being rather coarse, her genuine personality held a certain charm. She was honest and wasn’t afraid to stick up for what she believed was right.

And all that was great and helped shape her into a wonderful person, but it wasn’t what had truly _drawn_ him to her.

If he had to hazard a guess, he would say it was her _vulnerability_.

He knew, instinctively, that Hari was strong. She could stare down pureblood lords and ladies as they called her a mudblood without blinking. She also knew how to defend herself, never one to panic in times of stress.

But he also witnessed the times where she didn’t look strong. He was there when her gaze turned distant and her eyes became haunted. He saw the way she looked so _shocked_ and _startled_ the first time he bought her a fucking sugar quill—like she couldn’t _comprehend_ why someone would spend so much as a _sickle_ on her. Orion wanted to shake her and demand her to tell him who it was in her past that made her feel like she wasn’t worth enough for presents.

He noticed the way she would flinch slightly whenever someone touched her without warning and began to keep his distance, waiting for her to make the first move for any sort of contact. She hid it well, but he didn’t learn the art of reading your opponent’s body-language for nothing.

But above all else, she was innocent. She saw the bad in the world, knew about the darkness in the hearts of mankind, but decided to believe in them anyway. Her views were idealistic, as was her sense of justice. Orion wanted to protect it because she was _so, so kind and he didn’t want the world to change her._

“Orion, we need to talk.”

Orion turned around to see his older sister eyeing him with her arms crossed over her chest. “What could we possibly need to talk about, dear sister?”

Lucretia scoffed; her blonde hair pulled back in an elegant bun. Orion thought she looked prettier when she allowed her hair to fall in loose waves around her shoulders. A part of him wanted to comment about how she would age early if she wore such severe expressions.

“Don’t even start. You know very well what we need to talk about; where do you go each week?”

Orion blinked at her, an innocent expression on his face. “What needs to be discussed? Mother and father have yet to express any concern and I have not slipped up with my responsibilities since the dinner party last year.”

Lucretia sighed heavily as if having him as a younger brother was rather burdensome. Orion felt as if the assessment was rather unfair; she could have a sibling, like those _Weasleys_ instead. “It isn’t just about your duties as heir. If you messed up, then mother and father would simply take it to me to fix it for you.”

And, ouch, everyone knew that Lucretia was better at that type of stuff than Orion, but hearing her speak it so bluntly still stung a bit.

“You’re thirteen years old and you’re gone for hours at a time at least several times a week. You’ve never been away from home so much before. And just like right now, you always try to deflect the conversation whenever someone starts to wonder where you go during that time.” She gave him a sad expression that made Orion hate himself because he hated seeing her sad and made him hate her as well because she knew full-well how he felt about her being sad. “I was just worried about you.”

And shit, how do you respond to that?

His sister was terribly, terribly manipulative.

He smiled weakly at her, “If you were so worried, why not simply follow me? You certainly can do so. Why ask me and risk that I lie to you?”

“I trust you to tell me the truth,” she replied simply, “That, and the fact that you can’t lie to me. You’re terrible at it.” Well, she had a point.

He glanced around, eyeing the various portraits that were placed on the walls around them. “Not here.”

Lucretia gave a firm nod in affirmation. “Let’s go to my room, then.”

Sitting down on her bed, he watched as she locked her room and activated the privacy wards. “There, now no one can overhear us.”

Orion bit his lip, fighting the urge to fidget. “I am not doing anything _dangerous_ , but I’d rather not let father or mother find out.”

Lucretia pursed her lips and gave him a considering look. “That doesn’t make me feel better. Where do you go all those times that you are out?”

“Flourish n’ Blots.”

His sister blinked in mild shock, her frown softening. “I don’t see why mother and father would be against you frequenting there; we all knew you were a Ravenclaw at heart, anyways.” Her eyes narrowed at him, “Unless…Orion, you’re meeting up with someone that the family wouldn’t approve of, aren’t you?”

He didn’t reply, but the way he refused to meet her eyes was answer enough.

Lucretia groaned in exasperation, “Who is it?”

“Remember the girl who saved my life about a month ago? She’s now working there. At first, I just observed her, because she used up my life debt to her to get me to safety.”

Lucretia startled, “What do you mean?”

Orion gave her a wan smile. “Right after she saved my life, she used up her debt by having me promise to stay safe. Without her using her life debt for that promise, magic wouldn’t have guided me to you.”

“Is she an idiot?” He let out a harsh bark of laughter and she winced at how her words could have been taken. “I am extremely grateful for what she did, but I’m your sister. You were a stranger to her.”

“That is exactly what I asked her. She ended up getting mad at me and told me that ensuring my safety was one of the best decisions she’s ever made, and if she had a second chance, she would do it again. She is just a genuinely good person.”

Lucretia gave him a forlorn smile, before flopping down on him on the bed, much to his indignation. Orion scowled but didn’t try to move her. He was the only person with whom she could act immature. Everyone else expected the perfect, polite pureblood daughter, and the expectation was constricting her.

“Oh, damn,” she sighed wistfully, “How am I supposed to disapprove of you being around her if she sounds like such a nice person?”

Orion snorted, “That doesn’t sound like something a young pureblood lady should say.”

“Fuck off, you curse more than I do.”

Orion poked her in her sides. “Can you get off of me? You weigh more than Nana after her yearly dinner party.”

“Are you calling me fat?” she snarled playfully, dropping her full weight on him, “Suffer, then.”

Orion let out a wail. “Idiot! Stupid, ugly hag! Get off of me! How can _anyone_ call you dainty and polite?! I feel sorry for your future husband, you absolute _dragon_!”

“Mother told me I was perfectly polite and pretty.”

“Yeah? Well apparently, mother doesn’t know _shit_ ,” he growled from underneath her.

Lucretia smirked at him, “I’m so telling her you said that.”

“No, no, wait!” Orion began pleading with her. “Please, she’ll kill me, use some sort of necromancy to bring me back to life, only to kill me again! I’ll be poisoned for sure! Depending on her mood, she might just skip the poison for good, old-fashioned medieval methods! You’re the prettiest sister a brother could ask for! An absolute angel!”

Lucretia burst out laughing, loud and long. Orion was loathed to admit that anything from his goblin sister (she might have the rest of the world fooled, but he knew what she was truly like) could sound nice, but it had been a while since he had heard her laugh so carefree.

Rolling off of him until she was lying on her back, shoulders still shaking with breathless giggles, she reached out for his hand, grasping it in her own. Orion didn’t pull back, and it made her smile all the more. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell them about Hari.”

He smiled at her gratefully. “Thank you.”

She chortled. “Don’t thank me yet, I still want to meet her.” She gave him a pretty ( ~~imperfect, genuine~~ ) smile. “I’m still your older sister, so I need to make sure that she is a good influence on you. Besides, now I’m curious as well. Will I like her or hate her?”

Orion hummed. “I think you’d like her. Ten minutes into your first conversation with her, and you’ll end up asking her for her skincare routine.”

Lucretia snorted in an entirely unladylike way. “I’ll probably hate her if she is one of those people that have perfect skin no matter what they do.”

“No, you won’t.”

“No, I won’t.”

“I just,” he choked up, swallowing the lump in his throat, “I’ve never really met a person as honest as her. It’s nice, to know what to expect from the start with her. I don’t want our mother or father to find out and take that away from me.”

Lucretia smiled at him softly, ruffling his hair. “I told you I wouldn’t tell them. You have nothing to worry about from me.”

“I know,” he replied softly, giving her hand a gentle squeeze, “And I am thankful for having you as my sister.”

They laid together on the bed until they drifted off to sleep. And if their father, once he finally managed to work his way past the room’s wards, found them there, and didn’t wake them up, then that was nobody else’s business. And if he gently tucked them into his eldest child’s bed, then that wasn’t anybody’s business as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pardon me, but can we take a moment to appreciate how fluffy and wholesome Orion's sibling relationship with Lucretia is???


	7. Airplanes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so, so sorry about not posting this sooner. My laptop completely broke, taking everything I had saved on it with it because I was a dumb idiot and forgot to put it on my flash drive. So the past three months or so have been my version of a bitchy, petty fit over my lost chapters. 
> 
> I am so sorry for this pathetic excuse of a chapter in advance; I literally had no creative juices running in my brain so I'm afraid this chapter is like an abnormally long run-on sentence.
> 
> Well anyways, enjoy.

Tom Riddle needed to talk to Hari Potter.

There was something about her that drew him to her, and he needed to figure out what it was. It went beyond simple obsession. Those tended to burn out quickly. And it wasn’t because of power, because Hari was not a witch and was thus his lesser. It was something deep, intrinsic, _feral_.

And Tom needed to know what it was because _this was getting ridiculous_.

Birds of a feather flock together. But what were their similarities?

They were both fierce, even if they displayed it in different ways. Tom’s was a painful, icy thing: all venom and calculations and ruthlessness. Hari, however, burned like a supernova: the fiery heat of a dying star channeled into red-hot passion and anger. For while her expression might remain blank, those expressive green eyes of hers unveiled her true emotions.

But that was where their similarities ended, and Tom wasn’t sure how to deal with the lack of information.

“Tom? You wanted to talk to me?”

Tom turned lethargically from where he was sprawled across his bed with an advanced transfiguration book glamoured into a romance novel. He smirked at her. “I’ve never seen you so meek before, even waiting for permission to enter the room as well.”

As expected, she glared at him balefully at the comment, taking purposeful strides inside the room as her eyes glinted in irritation. “This is practically my room as well; you don’t bloody own the place.”

She sniffs at him imperiously, stepping up to his bed, and Tom Riddle is reminded once more about how so very **tiny** she truly is. When standing, the top of her head barely reaches his collarbones. And even now, when he is laying down, he can’t help but marvel at how slender she appears to be; like an elf or a pixie from muggle folklore.

“I was curious.”

She tilted her head, considering him. “About what?” Her lopsided braid (courtesy of Anne and Keith) fell loosely from her shoulders and Tom wanted nothing more than to yank out the hair-tie and rid her of the imperfection and the mark that childishly claimed her as theirs.

“You. Your goals and ambitions. Your view on life. Whatever you want me to mean.” He softly exhaled, not quite a sigh, and sat up to stare her in the eyes. She calmly stared back.

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because you’re smart. And you think ahead pragmatically. It’s why you have that job; you know there is no guarantee that someone will adopt you, and that the only person you can rely on is yourself.”

Hari nodded her head in cautious acknowledgment. “It would have been stupid of me to change my entire future on something that might not come true.”

Tom pressed on. “And yet you seem to have no qualms with rolling around in the dirt with the rest of those stupid orphans. I was under the impression that you wanted to get out of this diseased lifestyle, not make a home in it.”

Hari rolled her eyes and sat down next to him. “I do it because it’s fun. I hate the orphanage and the concept of what it means. I hate that I have to struggle continuously with an uphill battle for society to simply accept me and my merits. I hate the thought of anyone finding out about the orphanage because I’m too embarrassed and I hate myself for feeling this way. Fuck, sometimes I even hate being born a girl.”

She gave him a sharp smile that held no affection or warmth. “As you can see, I hate a lot of things. Yes, “rolling around in the dirt” as you so eloquently put it might seem beneath me, but why force myself to become even more miserable out of some sense of misplaced pride? No one who has the right to look down on me knows that I live here so does it matter how I spend my free time?”

Vibrant green eyes pierced straight through him, staring into his soul. Tom wondered if she, in any way, found it lacking, before berating himself for indulging in the thought in the first place.

He knew what she meant. It was well known that Tom Riddle viewed himself above everyone else in the orphanage. Her words intended to bring him down to her level: because Tom lived in the orphanage just the same as her.

“I suppose you have a point. However, one should not carelessly throw away proper manners simply because the people we surround ourselves with seem to lack them. And I find it very amusing to hear about misplaced pride from you.”

Hari snorted, languidly stretching her arms above her head with a soft sigh. Each month the priest held a special mass service, and all the children had to scrub the orphanage from top to bottom in a fleeting desire from Mrs. Cole who seemed to be under the delusion that having a clean building meant she was somehow more religious.

“I guess we’ll both be hypocrites, then. I seem to recall several times you were happy to strip yourself of societal niceties.”

And huh, because Hari certainly did not talk like that at the start of the summer. Subconsciously, she was mimicking the speech patterns of Tom Riddle, himself. The thought left him feeling inordinately pleased.

She arched her neck, rolling her head to combat the crick that was starting to develop. Tom watched on silently, gaze drawn to its slender curve for reasons unbeknownst to him.

“Well, what about you?”

“Mm?”

“What are your goals? Your ambitions?”

He eyed her, but she simply stared back with an open expression. Knowing what he was like but trusting him anyway. It was paradoxical.

“I am going to become something.” He spoke to her softly, words barely above a whisper. His words were not of idle daydreams, but of a long-term goal, he worked for through blood, sweat, and tears. To treat it as anything other than the _desperate, reckless hope_ that it was, was sacrilege.

“Something that men would only dare to dream of. I will rise above my station and my wretched poverty and I will become great enough to shed myself of my past. Because just as you are, I am embarrassed about the orphanage and I hate everything about it.”

Hari hummed thoughtfully. He could tell she took him seriously (which was best for her overall health). “Be embarrassed about your past, but don’t shed it. If you do so if you pretend to have been born like the wealthy people you want to become, you belittle your accomplishments. It is much more impressive to rise to greatness from humble beginnings such as these, rather than from someone who was born with every advantage the world had to offer them.”

He blinked at her, lips stretching into a slow smirk. “My, Hari, I never knew you had such a way with words. Well done; artfully spoken.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“Your newfound eloquence brings tears to my heart.”

He liked this; sitting there with her on his bed talking. She understood him, for all the drama between them. Right at that moment, she wasn’t full of rage at the mere thought of him. She wasn’t avoiding him. They were in their own, little bubble, apart from the outside world.

A siren began to wail out, breaking the fragile peace.

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And Tom feels a shock of cold as if liquid nitrogen had shot directly into his bloodstream. Besides him, Hari sits so very, very still. Her face was both pale and sickly green.

Almost in tandem, both teenagers could hear the fearful cries of the younger children as Mrs. Cole wrangled them in a line.

“Hurry, hurry! The nearest shelter is about a block away!”

A glance to his side showed that Hari was trembling, eyes glazed in a way that showed she was seeing things from far off.

Tom was afraid. And vengeful. And loathed the muggle world because _he was only fifteen, why did he have to worry about his own life?_ He was panicking and needed to _think_ but it was hard because Hari was starting to _disassociate_.

Steeling himself (because if he panicked, too, then they’d both be as good as gone), he grabbed her wrist in a tight hold and began to march both of them down to the other orphans. Hari stumbled behind him pliantly, not even bothering to complain about the grip that was likely to leave bruises.

It was a testament to how grim the situation was when Mrs. Cole did not spare the duo a second glance, despite how unusually close they were.

Once they were outside, they ran. Mary, Amy, and some of the older children held the hands of the little ones, ensuring that they did not get lost. Tom refused to relinquish his hold on Hari, dragging her behind the rest of the group.

He scowled, fearful of the airplanes that flew above their heads. Fumbling for a moment, he grasped his wand tightly in his other hand. Children were allowed to use underage magic in life-and-death scenarios. If a bomb was dropped nearby, he could cast a shield around himself and Hari, strong enough to block any debris or other projectiles flying at them.

They would be fine. _They would be fine._ (The same could not be said about the others, because a shield grew weaker when it covered more people, and Tom was not about to risk his life for these morons.)

A dark pulse thrummed from the yew wand, calming his nerves somewhat. It would give him the power he needed; it would not abandon him.

They would not die tonight, not if he could help it.

Hari couldn’t die (and Tom wouldn’t let her). Not until he figured her out. She was…she was like a favored possession, and Tom loathed the thought of giving **anything** up to someone else.

He would think about this later; when his thoughts weren’t as muddled by the sirens that left his ears ringing.

The smoke of burning buildings had rolled over the street, blocking out any light of the dimming sun and causing the lit lanterns to let out an orange, hazy glow.

They were nearly there—Tom could see the entrance to the shelter. He tightened his grip on Hari’s hand until it turned completely white, no doubt cutting off her circulation. She still hadn’t come out of her fog, and he refused to lose her now that they were almost to safety.

“Quickly, quickly!” Mrs. Cole bustled about, running to the entrance to hold it open for the others. “Get inside!”

It took them too long, in Tom’s opinion, to enter. The doorway was about the size of a cellar door, and only two or three children could get through at a time, causing the others to fight for who got to go through first.

He nearly snarled when he saw Dennis Bishop shove away Mary, who had been helping Anne and her brother Keith to get through. It wasn’t that he cared for them, but they were being efficient and Bishop was going to get them all killed in his stupid selfishness.

Mrs. Cole, _the useless bitch_ , didn’t even try to stop him, only fretting about funding and _what am I going to eat if they decide the location is too dangerous and stop sending money?_

But despite rage being a powerful emotion, his fear crept back upon him, leaving him breathless. Raw, primitive response to stimulus in his brain resulting in his fight-or-flight reflex. A base instinct that recognized the danger he was in and urged him to shove through the crowd of children like a wild animal, to do whatever action necessary to ensure his survival.

He didn’t want to die.

**He didn’t want to die.**

Not when he still had so much to do. Not when he still had so much to live for.

His ambitions ( _revolutionize the Wizarding World; Minister of Magic by age thirty_ ), his goals ( _become the first person to obtain immortality; conquer Death_ ), he couldn’t let them die with him.

 _He couldn’t die, because what was there for him after death? Hell? Purgatory? Nothingness? And endless abyss where he’s left isolated with his thoughts for all of eternity? Or would he become a ghost; an apparition cursed to watch others_ live _and squander their life away, forever yearning for something just out of his reach?_

He still had to earn the title of Head Boy. He still had to find his father. He still had to figure out what his relationship with Hari was, and what he wanted it to be.

How could he make changes to the Wizarding World, if he couldn’t even live to become Minister of Magic? Because he so many thoughts, so many ideas ( _and they came to him constantly, insistently, too many and too quick until they built up and his brain felt like it was going to explode without an outlet_ ). He had so many ideas and not enough time to implement them and no one _understood_ , because _nobody could keep up_.

He hated this (and Dumbledore for willfully leaving him in this situation); it caused him to panic and think irrationally. He didn’t have time for self-reflection and his reasons for cowardice towards Death.

It was almost their turn to enter, and Tom absentmindedly pocketed his wand once more.

Mrs. Cole startled, looking at Hari with concern when she finally noticed the fact that she wasn’t completely there mentally. Tom scoffed in derision, rolling his eyes.

In an action that could almost be described as gentle, or sweet, he held Hari’s hands in his own and carefully guided her down the twisting staircase that led to the base of the underground bunker (an old, abandoned railway station), ready to catch her if she stumbled. It was the most gentle touch he had ever given anyone else without it being the result of manipulation.

Down, down, down they went, paying no attention to the bugs that crawled up the walls and over the ceiling.

Once Tom reached the bottom and dragged them off to the side, the adrenaline wore off and everything that happened crashed onto him at once. He was left feeling jittery, despite bone-deep exhaustion that crept upon him. Knees wobbly and legs feeling like jelly, he sank to the ground, dragging Hari with him.

In front of them, several children began to wail now that they weren’t in immediate danger. Whether out of fear or pure relief, Tom wasn’t sure. Nevertheless, he ignored it all.

Green eyes were still glazed over; and Hari remained mostly unresponsive, simply sagging into his side as she dropped her head against his shoulder. Tom let her because he needed the physical weight and warmth to ground him to reality just as much as she did.

He didn’t like her like this; she was too strange. He wanted to claw into her deepest parts, to the part inside that she retreated into, and drag her out (kicking and screaming if he needed to). It frustrated him because even if he could, he wouldn’t because the attempt would simply cause her to retreat further into herself.

If he wanted her to heal (and that was a strange thought, for he always broke, mended, and molded, but never healed), then he needed to sit there patiently and hold her in hopes to allow her to ground herself to his touch. She needed to be able to open up herself like a delicate flower, petal by petal until she was once more coherent if he wanted her back to normal.

So, as she curled up into a tiny ball, he began to curl up next to her, wrapping an arm around her waist and pressing her flushed against his side. He wanted nothing more to go a step further and pull her into his lap, to bask in her warmth and comfortable weight, but knew that would be going too far, especially with others watching their interactions.

Hari trembled, mouth moving but no sounds coming out, and Tom tightened his grip on her.

He could hear the whispers of the other, nosy muggles.

“ _Poor dear, is she alright?_ ”

And Mrs. Cole, never one to back out of the chance to gossip about something, shook her head in mock worry. “ _I really shouldn’t be telling you this, but Hari is our newest member of the orphanage. When she came, she was all dirty and bruised so I decided not to ask her what happened—the poor dear looked close enough to cry already. About a month later, I ran into the good constable that had brought her over at the market. Remember that air raid about three months ago? He found her stumbling out of the wreckage; poor dear must have lost her family to the air raid and is probably traumatized now._ ”

Tom felt Hari flinch violently and observed her with a cautious eye. If anything, her face looked paler and Tom wanted to sigh in aggravation at Mrs. Cole for ruining any progress he made with her.

“I can’t...” It was spoken so quietly, Tom had to double back to make sure he had even heard it.

“Hari Potter?” She didn’t reply.

She wrapped her arms around herself, nails digging into her skin until it turned red from the welts. If she drew blood and looked to go farther, Tom would put a stop to it, but was content to just let her be.

Hari looked so incredibly distraught. “I can’t,” she repeated her voice breaking. “Not again. Not again. I can’t lose them again.”

Tom squeezed her waist gently, allowing her to sag even further against him. He did not pity her, or think of her as weak. For he felt her fear in such a deep, intimate way it may as well been his own.

Vaguely, he heard the whispers of others and turned his attention to the adults Mrs. Cole had been talking to (as well as some who had eavesdropped on the conversation), watching with narrowed eyes as they gazed at her in disgusting pity and false sympathy. Instead of looking empathetic, they looked hungry, amused, as if her trauma was something to point and whisper at.

Tom gave them all an icy stare, causing many of them to deflate or look shamefaced. When some of them continued staring, he laughed at them coldly, haughtily. “Do you have nothing better to do with your time than to watch a scared child?”

Some of them flushed with embarrassment or anger, and Tom smirked at them darkly, letting some of his tendrils of magic to sweep over them and unnerve them until they looked elsewhere.

Hari shivered but did not try to pull away. With a growing sense of satisfaction, Tom noticed that her skin was starting to turn back to its healthy color.

He had a theory forming in his head about her background, and with each new revelation, it seemed to solidify the fact.

Hari Potter was probably a squib.

It would make sense: the Potter family, for how pretentious they are about being a ‘light’ family with sympathy to muggles, also seemed to suspiciously lack squibs.

They most likely gave her away when they found out she didn’t have magic, which would explain her strange detachment for her parents if they had ‘died’ only several months ago. After all, who would want to love the very people that abandoned them?

It would also explain her lack of fear towards him.

If she already knew about magic, then it was no wonder she accused him without a shred of doubt in her mind about him being the culprit whenever he decided to mess with someone. And if she was already familiar with magic, and had faced Death and survived, why _would_ she allow herself to feel intimidated by him?

Tom’s mind whirled with the endless possibilities: for if she knew about magic, then why go so far to cover it up?

But...it made sense, didn’t it? Hari was an objectively kind person by nature, but even she wouldn’t want to be associated with the people who abandoned her. And given his general attitude of superiority, she probably thought he was going to harass her if he found out she was a squib. It was what other wizards would have done, especially purebloods.

But Tom had honestly never really cared about squibs. It didn’t matter to him whether they stayed in the Wizarding World or were forced into the muggle one by families ashamed of them. But the people he catered to didn’t like them, so publicly, in the Slytherin Common Room, Tom didn’t like them either.

That might have to change, however. Because it would be a shame to force Hari to stay in such a dirty place, like a bird locked in a cage. She was too vibrant; the muggle world would only dim her.

Once Tom got a job, he could buy his own place. He would offer to let her room with him (after all, they were technically roommates already and Tom knew he had no qualms about sharing a space with her).

It would...it would also be nice. He could work towards being Minister of Magic, and she could work towards her own goals. She could start her own business, such as a cafe or a small restaurant (it was an open secret that Hari was the best cook out of everyone in the orphanage). Tom would loan her money, himself, to ensure her business would be able to start up.

It also didn’t hurt that Tom expected her to grow into a gorgeous woman within ten to fifteen years.

Yes, he wanted her with him. Because for some odd reason, he never felt his skin crawl at the idea of touching her. And her voice never grated on his ears. Her personality, for as frustrating and contrary she was, could never be considered as ‘insipid’ and something about her just made him _relax_.

He could teach her about the world they were both denied as children (although he highly suspected she would forgo any etiquette in an effort to remain as contrary as possible). She was smart, and could no doubt pick up much of the theory.

And for as many future arguments he could see come up, it was nice to have someone **see** him and not be afraid (even though he was unusually lenient towards her due to an almost unnatural amount of fondness).

He didn’t voice any of his suspicions out loud and simply held her as her body wracked with tremors.

Eventually, she seemed to calm herself down, breathing turning sedate. She didn’t try to turn away from him, but he could feel the tension dripping off her shoulders ( _not completely gone, not until the raid had passed and everyone was safe_ ).

“Thank you,” she croaked, looking shamefaced. Despite the serious situation, Tom felt amused: it was doubtless that telling him thank you for her was like pulling teeth. He could even see the little grimace on her face as she said it.

“You’re quite welcome, Hari.” He grinned at her, all sharp smiles and teeth.

She laughed wetly. “Oh god, near-death situations somehow manage to turn you into even more of a bastard than before.”

He smirked back at her.

It was near midnight when they were able to walk back to the orphanage, the overall mood of the children morose.

That night, Tom woke up to one of Hari’s screaming fits; something that hadn’t happened in a while.

“No no no no nonononono...”

Quickly recognizing the signs of an oncoming screaming fit, Tom sped over to the other side of the room, shaking her almost violently. “Wake. Up.”

“No, please stop, no no NO!”

“Hari!” He snapped at her forcefully, and she woke with a gasp. 

It took her less than a moment to gather her bearings, and Tom wondered how often she had such night terrors to be so adept at dealing with them.

Tom saw a flash of fear cross her eyes before it was buried under the storm of emotions that she constantly wore like a cloak of armor. She tried to give him a shaky smile, but it fell flat and she grimaced. “I’m sorry for bothering you.”

“Do you need anything?”

“What?” She glanced up at him, startled.

“Do you need anything? If we don’t fix this now, then you will just fall asleep and wake me up by nightmares again.”

If anything, she looked even more ashamed of herself.

Low self-esteem, then. Feeling guilty for something out of her control (and something that, while a hindrance, was very understandable). She must have been in an environment where her caretakers found her to be a nuisance.

Tom felt a stab of annoyance, once more taking note of the growing list of similarities the two of them shared. He made a mental note to research the Potters when he came back to Hogwarts.

“Could I—?” She abruptly closed her mouth with an audible _click_ , looking away in embarrassment.

“Could you—?” He drawled the words out slowly, trying to tease the answer out of her.

“Could…we share a bed? We can keep to our sides, but the raid brought back some bad memories...and...”

“And you need someone by you for the reassurance that you’re alive.” He spoke softly, feeling the uncomfortable ache at how _familiar_ this was to him.

Hari nodded wordlessly, dragging her covers over her face until only her eyes peeked out at him.

“Very well, then,” he sighed, causing her to startle, “scoot over.”

Wide-eyed, she obeyed the instruction, staring at him in disbelief. “I didn’t expect you to agree to it.”

He stared at her darkly. “I’m tired and I want to sleep. Don’t think too much into it.”

Hari fell back into an uneasy sleep, slowly relaxing the longer her sleep remained uninterrupted. Tom spent the opportunity to shamelessly gaze at her, idly playing with a strand of her hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a surprise Tom's knees aren't hurting more with how far he's jumping to conclusions.


End file.
